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The Unique Idea That Saved This Bird From Extinction

2012-02-10T19:59:28Z

By John R. Platt
(Click here for original article.)

For centuries the tribal Nyishi people in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh have worn the magnificent beaks of hornbill birds as a part of their traditional headgear, called pudum, which are considered a sign of manhood and tribal identity. Hornbills are the state birds of Arunachal Pradesh, but overhunting for pudum threatened all five resident species with regional extinction at the end of the 20th century. According to a recent article from Firstpost, forestry officials had almost given up hope on saving the birds, which were growing increasingly rare in the state.

But in 2000 Deputy Chief Wildlife Warden Chukhu Loma came up with an idea: fabricate synthetic hornbill beaks and offer them to the Nyishi for use instead of real beaks. He enlisted the aid of the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and other organizations to manufacture and distribute the fiberglass beaks, which cost about 15 Rupees (30 cents) each.

At first the idea was not openly welcomed. The Telegraph reported in 2007 that Loma, a member of the Nyishi tribe, "drew the wrath of the tribal community" when he first proposed the artificial hornbill beaks.

But tribal elders quickly began to warm up to the fabricated beaks, and some tribal members even got involved with making them. In addition to wider distribution efforts by the WTI, Loma hands out the fiberglass beaks from his home, where tribal members can exchange real beaks for the synthetic ones after promising to spread awareness about the need to preserve the hornbills in the wild.

Soon after the synthetic beak distribution began, hornbill populations started to rebound. In 2000, just 500 of the birds were left in Arunachal Pradesh. By 2007, their numbers had grown to around 2,000.

Today the birds are still threatened by hunting and deforestation, but other efforts are also underway to help preserve them. In 2006, the Nature Conservation Foundation started a hornbill nest adoption program which enlists and pays Nyishi villagers to collect ecological data on hornbill nesting and monitor their populations. The effort has been credited with an increase in tourism to the Pakke Tiger Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary, the only government-protected hornbill habitat in India.

Five hornbill species live in Arunachal Pradesh: the great hornbill (Buceros bicornis), Rufous hornbill (Buceros hydrocorax), Austen’s brown hornbill (Anorrhinus austeni), wreathed hornbill (Rhyticeros undulatus) and Oriental pied hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris). The great, Rufous and Austen's brown species are all listed as globally "Near Threatened" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species.

Flickr image courtesy of Lip Kee.

So Much For Holding Polluters Responsible In California

2012-02-10T19:19:31Z

This article comes to us courtesy of California Watch.

By Corey G. Johnson

Under pressure from construction, architect and other industry groups, state legislators killed a bill that would have closed a loophole used by businesses to evade pollution lawsuits.

Sponsored by Assemblyman Warren Furutani, D-Long Beach, AB 1207 arose out of a lawsuit in Carson, where residents discovered in 2009 that for nearly five decades, their families have been exposed to dangerous levels of cancer-causing toxins emanating from their properties. There is no state law that explicitly puts time limits on pollution cases, which often are discovered decades after the toxic dumping occurs.

However, Shell Oil Co. and a local developer were able to initially get the resident lawsuit thrown out by claiming the state's 10-year time limit on "construction defect" claims had expired.

Key supporters of the Carson residents told Furutani that new legislation was needed, as other companies were using the state's construction defects time limits to escape legal responsibility for pollution-related damages.

But construction industry lobbyists argued that Furutani's bill made architects, builders and developers needlessly vulnerable to lawsuits.

The American Institute of Architects' California Council, Associated Builders and Contractors of California and 40 other groups sent a letter to Mike Feuer, D-West Hollywood, chairman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, warning that California's weak economy was threatened by Furutani's legislation and could force business owners into "possible bankruptcy."

This bill would remove this outside limitation and thereby expand the statute of limitations on personal or real property lawsuits when there was an allegation of exposure to a hazardous material, even if it was in relation to remediation activities. In so doing, AB 1207 unnecessarily exposes a large number of industries to increased unjustified liability that may even lead to possible bankruptcy.
At a time when our economy is struggling to recover and when the state needs jobs, such an unjustified increased liability on businesses and governments is ill-advised. For these reasons we urge your "no" vote.

Three years ago, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control unearthed evidence of Carson's pollution while investigating another case. Subsequent investigations by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board have found alarming levels of cancer-causing benzene and explosive methane gas throughout the Carson neighborhood.

Shell Oil, which owned and used the land for drilling and dumping waste, sold the property in the 1960s but didn't remove the toxins before the sale. The water quality board has issued an advisory urging residents to avoid physical contact with the soil in their yards and has ordered Shell Oil to clean up the properties.

In 2009, hundreds of Carson residents filed multiple lawsuits against Shell Oil and a local developer, alleging the companies never told property owners that their homes rested atop an abandoned oil farm and chemical dumpsite. The lawsuits also accused Shell of failing to clean up the contaminated soil.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Highberger, an appointee of former Gov. Pete Wilson, initially rejected the residents' claims, citing the state's 10-year limit on construction defect lawsuits. He has since rescinded that ruling and the case is still ongoing.

Furutani said his bill would prevent future legal misinterpretations over pollution claims, according to a legislative analysis.

AB 1207 intends to correct a flaw in current law that could be – and currently is being – interpreted to allow corporate polluters to walk away from dangerous pollution as long as it is concealed for ten years. If the pollution is not discovered, as is often the case, for ten, twenty, thirty years or longer, the polluter gets away with it and leaves others to deal with the health and environmental ramifications.

Clearly the Legislature never intended the Statue of Repose or any other limitations be afforded to polluters or other illegal dischargers and it needs to be corrected to prevent further abuse of the system. The unscrupulous use of the Statute of Repose by polluters to protect themselves from liability undermines most environmental laws in the State of California and puts homeowners at financial and health risk.
The bill officially died last week in Feuer's committee. Feuer didn't respond to requests for comment. Furutani said he was disappointed but not deterred.

"Although this legislation would not have directly helped the residents of the Carson Carousel Tract, it would have prevented this from happening to homeowners in the future," Furutani said. "We are conducting further research for viable legislation that would ensure that polluters are held responsible to clean up toxic pollution they create, no matter how many years pass before it is discovered.”

Corey G. Johnson is an investigative reporter for California Watch, a project of the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting. Find more California Watch stories here.

LOOK: Unbelievably Sleek Solar-Powered Vehicle

2012-02-10T19:15:40Z

BP Wins Ruling To Keep Old Accidents Out Of Gulf Spill Trial

2012-02-10T19:12:00Z

* Evidence of Texas, Alaska incidents excluded

* Judge: Older cases too dissimilar from Gulf spill

* Feb. 27 trial expected

By Jonathan Stempel

Feb 9 (Reuters) - BP Plc won a court order to keep references to some previous accidents out of this month's trial to assess blame for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the oil company's second victory in as many days to bar potentially damaging evidence.

Thursday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans followed a ruling Wednesday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Sally Shushan to keep out some emails questioning some of BP's activities before and after the spill.

Barbier blocked the introduction of evidence related to two accidents involving BP facilities: a 2005 explosion at a Texas City, Texas refinery that killed 15 people, and a 2006 rupture of a corroded pipeline at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.

In the Texas case, BP pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act and accepted a $50 million fine. BP pleaded guilty to a criminal Clean Water Act violation and was fined $20 million in the Alaska case.

Barbier, however, ruled that the prior incidents were "not sufficiently similar" to the April 20, 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and blowout of the Macondo oil well, which BP mainly owned.

"The prior incidents were all land-based, while the Macondo incident occurred in the Gulf of Mexico," Barbier wrote. "Additionally, the circumstances of oil refinery disasters and (an) exploratory drilling disaster are vastly different."

James Roy, a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs, who include people and businesses harmed by the accident, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

BP was also fined a record $87 million by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration for safety problems at the Texas refinery.

Barbier is scheduled on Feb. 27 to preside over a non-jury trial to assign blame for the Deepwater Horizon accident, which killed 11 people and caused the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Other corporate defendants include rig owner Transocean Ltd and Halliburton Co, which provided cementing services for the well. Plaintiffs also include the U.S. government, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.

BP has set aside roughly $42 billion for spill costs. Chief Executive Bob Dudley this week said the London-based company is preparing for trial, but willing to settle on reasonable terms.

The case is In re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon" in the Gulf of Mexico, on April 20, 2010, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, No. 10-md-02179.

WATCH: Amazing Visualization Presents Scale Of Universe

2012-02-10T18:45:44Z

You could call it "Powers of Ten" for the Millennial Generation.

Cary and Michael Huang, the minds behind the 2010 hit "Scale of the Universe," have released a follow-up to their original interactive visualization.

Using objects varying in size from 10^-35 meters to 9.3 x 10²⁸ meters, the tool attempts to help viewers grasp of the size of the universe in relation to familiar (and unfamiliar) objects, land masses, planets and the like.

But unlike the visualization that was released a couple of years ago, each object -- and there are hundreds -- is clickable and comes with its own explanation.

Want to know about the Horsehead Nebula? Quantum foam? The Hoover Dam? Just click on the icons as you travel between yoctometers and parsecs.

The folks at JayIsGames.com say it only takes about 20 minutes to go through and read the descriptions of all of the objects, but we've been playing with this for quite a bit longer.

Check out the video above for a preview of the visualization, and click on the image below to give it a try.

(Via Kottke.org)

Man's Best Exercise Partner

2012-02-10T18:21:40Z

If you love yoga and you love dogs, then you’ll be over the moon about Doga.

That's right, Doga is exactly what it looks and sounds like -- the art of yoga, but add the "d" for the dogs.

Doga instructor Pam Paul of Body Images Fitness Center is holding a series of Doga classes at Bark-A-Bout Training Facility on 23 Mile Road in Shelby Township.

The 10 Tech Companies Taking The Biggest Stand Against Climate Change

2012-02-10T18:21:18Z

How are some of the world's biggest IT companies taking a stand against a climate change?

A list released by Greenpeace this week ranks some of the world's largest information technology companies based on their efforts to mitigate climate change.

The fifth edition of the Cool IT Leaderboard puts Google at the top, with Cisco and Ericsson grabbing second and third.

According to a press release, the list "ranks 21 IT companies on their clean energy leadership potential, willingness to embrace clean energy solutions and potential to influence energy decisions."

Neither Apple nor Facebook were included in the list, as they have not pursued "market opportunities to drive IT energy solutions" to the same extent as others, according to Greenpeace.

Greenpeace International IT analyst Gary Cook said, "Technology giants have a real opportunity to use their power and influence to change how we produce and use energy -- Google tops the table because it's putting its money where its mouth is by pumping investment into renewable energy."

As Wired notes, the highest scoring company, Google, only received a score of 53 out of 100. Cisco was last year's winner, with 70 points, but dropped to 49 this year. Greenpeace says Cisco's fall is due to "a much less forceful support for priority climate and energy policies."

For more information on some of the greenest companies around, check out Newsweek's 2011 list of the 30 greenest tech companies.

List courtesy of Greenpeace. Read their full report here. Scroll down for the companies ranked 11-21.

The companies which did not make the top 10 include:
11. Wipro
12. Dell
13. Microsoft
14. SAP
15. AT&T
16. HCL
17. NTT
18. NEC
19. TCS
20. Telefónica
21. Oracle

What's So XXX About Saving Animals?

2012-02-10T17:49:32Z

From Michael d'Estries and Mother Nature Network:

PETA's announcement late last summer that it planned to reserve one of the new .xxx domain extensions was met with both scorn and amusement. The animal rights organization, well-known for using clever marketing strategies to spread its messages, said the intention for the domain was to create a "pornography site that draws attention to the plight of animals."

Naturally, the media and people alike were curious as to what such a mix might mean for content. In the early months, I wasn't even sure if PETA exactly knew. But in a January interview, President Ingrid Newkirk said that what's in store will be both titillating and shocking "but perhaps not in the way that people think."

Yesterday, PETA took the wraps off its new domain, revealing a splash page with a signup for those interested in getting the news when the site officially launches.

"We're not quite ready to reveal PETA.xxx yet, but we promise that when we do, there will definitely be a real happy ending," the site reads. Oh boy.

In response to those saying that this website is yet another way PETA disrespects women, Newkirk fired back in her interview, calling such accusations "fiddlesticks."

"I am a woman, and I am 62 and a bit," she said. "I have appeared in the I'd Rather Go Naked ads. That may give you a shudder, but it's true. And we have ample examples of men who have appeared in them, too. They just don't get the same press. We pretty much do anything and everything. It's just that some things get press and some things don't."

Newkirk challenged critics to speak with any of the women who have agreed to participate in past campaigns; using actress Taraji Henson as an example. "Ask her, and she'll say, I'm a powerful woman. I use my body as a political statement. I'm entitled to. We don't live in Afghanistan. Leave me alone."

To sign up for PETA.xxx, proceed at your own risk (from work is probably not a great idea) and jump here.

Screening Could Suss Out Susceptibility To Altitude Sickness

2012-02-10T17:28:00Z

By Ferris Jabr
(Click here for the original article)

On his 27th birthday, David Hillebrandt and his wife Sally began to climb Mount Kenya, the second-highest mountain in Africa after Kilimanjaro. Instead of gearing up and heading straight for the mountain's tallest peak—which reaches 5,199 meters—the couple started their journey more leisurely, trekking through scenic ridges and valleys around the mountain at an altitude of about 3,000 meters.

David, who today serves as a medical advisor to the British Mountaineering Council, already had considerable climbing experience at the time: he had scaled a 5,790-meter peak in Pakistan and 3,960-meter peaks in the European Alps. Sally, in contrast, had never done any serious climbing and did not consider herself a mountaineer.

But Sally wasn't the one who needed to stop and turn around.

"I am meant to be this tough, rugged mountaineer," David says, "and I celebrated my birthday by throwing up all over the place." Plagued by a throbbing headache and relentless nausea, David retreated to lower ground. He knew from previous climbs that he was prone to altitude sickness, but he thought circling the mountain at 3,000 meters would be a good way to acclimatize. This time it didn't do the trick. Even though she was a far less experienced climber, Sally adjusted to the altitude much faster.

It wasn't experience that made the difference—it was genetics. Scientists have known for awhile that some people are inherently more susceptible to altitude sickness than others—and that this susceptibility is heritable—but only now are they on the trail of the culprit genes. Preliminary studies suggest that a group of six genes predicts who will get altitude sickness with greater than 90 percent accuracy. Such a precise genetic test would greatly benefit the military, which currently has no way of predicting which soldiers will fall ill when flown to high altitudes and would rather not waste money on expensive acclimatization drugs. In a parallel research effort, scientists have been searching for the genes that determine which cows develop altitude sickness, also known as brisket disease, when they graze in the Rocky Mountains. Because tens of thousands of cows die in the western U.S. from brisket disease annually, ranchers would like nothing more than to strip the responsible genes from the breeding population.

Written in blood
The pursuit of a genetic test for altitude sickness began in earnest a few years ago in Robert Roach's laboratory at the University of Colorado. In 2010, 28 people in Roach's lab ascended to an altitude of 4,875 meters without ever leaving the ground. Roach placed his volunteers in a large metal box called a hypobaric chamber and gradually sucked out air with a vacuum pump, reducing atmospheric pressure to mimic a high altitude, low-oxygen environment. Roach purposefully recruited a mixture of people who were susceptible to altitude sickness and people who had never had problems in high climes. As expected, about half of the 28 volunteers felt sick in the chamber, whereas the others felt fine.

Roach took samples of his volunteers' blood, isolated their DNA and programmed a computer to search for genetic differences between the people who got sick and those who didn't mind hanging out in thin air. The program identified six genes that are expressed at unusually high or low levels in people who felt sick; some of the genes are linked to oxygen transport. Looking at the expression levels of those six genes alone was enough to distinguish people who became ill from those who did not with about 95 percent accuracy.

The following year, Roach collaborated with Benjamin Levine of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center to try the rudimentary genetic test on a larger group of volunteers. This time, instead of bringing the mountain to his lab, Roach decided to move his lab to the mountain.

In groups of about 15, Roach and Levine took 140 fit men and women from Dallas to Mount Baldy in Breckenridge, Colo., which is around 4,000 meters above sea level. During their weekend mountain getaway, the volunteers in each group—all of whom had passed the Army Physical Fitness Test—ran 3.2 kilometers, did push-ups and sit-ups, and hiked a trail as fast as they could. A few days earlier, everyone in the group had performed the same exercises at sea level. Altitude made all the difference. "We had some serious athletes in our group, a lot of triathlon people," says Tom Tielleman, 24, a former Eagle Scout. "Everyone did worse on the mountain." Some people did worse than others.

Currently, Roach and Levine are analyzing DNA from the Breckenridge study, searching for the same six genes that Roach identified in the hypobaric chamber study as well as looking for new genetic patterns that discriminate between people whose performance decreased slightly on the mountain and those whose performance worsened dramatically. If they find a strong signature, Roach predicts that they will develop a working genetic test for altitude sickness within a year. The Pentagon, which funds some of Roach's research, wants an easy way to identify soldiers who succumb to altitude sickness when fighting in mountainous regions.

In many cases, the symptoms of altitude sickness are mild and dissipate after a few days. But for some people altitude sickness is not just a minor inconvenience—the headaches, nausea and vomiting are debilitating, making it difficult to stand up or think clearly, let alone fight a war. Some people cough up blood and retain fluid in their lungs as the pressure inside capillaries increases, forcing out water. The U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine estimates that above 3,000 meters between 25 and 35 percent of soldiers yield to altitude sickness; above 4,000 meters, between 80 and 90 percent of soldiers fall ill. Although there are effective drugs like Diamox (acetazolamide) to prevent and treat altitude sickness, buying drugs in mass quantities for an unknown number of soldiers is expensive and wasteful, and some drugs have unwanted side effects such as blurred vision and excess blood acidity. A genetic test would not help treat altitude sickness, but it would help military leaders strategize, giving the soldiers most likely to get sick more time to acclimatize and thereby reducing the number of medical evacuations.

Bloated bovines
Altitude sickness is also the scourge of entirely different population of mountain-dwellers: cows. By the time a rancher spots one lumbering up and down the mountain, its swollen chest sloshing between its front legs, there is not much he can do except move the animal to a lower altitude and hope it lives. Every summer in the U.S. West—when ranchers take cattle to graze on grassy mountain slopes—tens of thousands of cows die because they cannot adapt to the thin, oxygen-poor air. For the past two years, scientists collaborating with a new research facility at New Mexico State University (N.M.S.U.) in Las Cruces have been searching for the genes that determine which cows develop high altitude sickness, aka brisket disease. Once they find the genes, the idea is to breed them out of the bovine population.

From May to November each year, ranchers in many parts of the western U.S. take their cattle into the mountains where there is more rainfall and more nutritious grass than at lower altitudes—lower oxygen levels notwithstanding. In the Rockies, summer pastures range from 1,500 to 3,650 meters; an altitude greater than 1,500 meters is enough to induce brisket disease. In some parts of Montana and Colorado, cattle graze at altitudes upward of 4,000 meters, says Manny Encinias, director of N.M.S.U.'s Top of the Valle research facility in Valles Caldera National Preserve.

Whereas some cows take the swift transition to high altitudes in stride, others swell up and die. Not all breeds are equally susceptible, nor are all individuals from a single breed—just as human susceptibility to acute mountain sickness varies. Healthy cows respond to low-oxygen environments in a characteristic way: their hearts beat faster to deliver enough oxygenated blood to the body and brain, and blood vessels in the lung constrict to shunt blood to the organ's oxygen-rich areas. Cows that develop brisket disease respond similarly, but their body's compensation is too aggressive for their own good. Blood pressure increases so much that plasma seeps out of the blood vessels into tissues surrounding the heart and lungs, bloating the cows' chests. And blood vessels in the lung constrict so much that the blood backs up into the heart, which eventually gives out. The cows collapse and die from heart failure.

At Top of the Valle, which is nearly 2,600 meters above sea level, researchers are working to pinpoint the exact genes responsible for the physiological differences between a cow that keels over in the mountains and one that remains as lively as Julie Andrews in the Alps.

Ranchers in New Mexico, Texas, Colorado and Utah send their cows to N.M.S.U., where Tim Holt of Colorado State University in Fort Collins slides a catheter through their jugular veins toward their hearts and measures arterial pressure—an indicator of the cow's susceptibility to brisket disease. If tests suggest the cow won't fare well in the mountains, a rancher may avoid a potential loss by selling the cow to a lower-altitude ranch. "It's almost a given that ranchers will lose between 5 and 30 percent of their herd if they send cattle to high country—that's of great economic significance," Holt says. N.M.S.U. says the beef industry loses $60 million annually to high altitude disease. Some ranchers have considered giving cattle drugs designed to treat mountain sickness in people, like acetazolamide, but the FDA has not approved the use of such drugs in animals meant for human consumption.

Even if N.M.S.U. tested all of the nearly one million cows grazing in the Rockies for pulmonary hypertension—high blood pressure in the lungs—it wouldn't solve the brisket problem. When ranchers purchase bull semen for artificial insemination—the most common breeding practice in the Rockies—there is no way to know if the semen contains the undesirable genes responsible for brisket. Furthermore, ranchers risk reintroducing those genes into a population they have already worked to make mountain-friendly through generations of artificial selection. By identifying the responsible genes, scientists give ranchers a way to screen bulls for those genes and eliminate the problem of genetic recontamination.

"If you raise a bull at sea level, you can't figure out his genetic predisposition to high altitude sickness without taking him above 5,000 feet. Our ultimate goal is to take a DNA sample and generate a value: either a concrete 'Yes or No' or a numerical value of genetic merit," explains Jonathan Beever of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Beever receives blood samples from N.M.S.U., the DNA in which he analyzes.

"There's always been theories about which breeds and animals are more susceptible," Encinias says. "Now we are trying to objectively quantify it."

Snowfall Could Make For A Messy Friday Night Rush Hour

2012-02-10T17:15:50Z

As snow already begins to fall in parts of Chicago in the early afternoon, meteorologists put the area under a winter weather advisory Friday.

As much as 3 inches of lake-effect snow is expected to fall in Chicago Friday, but the real weather story of the area is the foot of snow predicted for northwest Indiana, the Chicago Tribune reports. There, conditions will be nearly blizzard-like.

AccuWeather warned that, amid the snowfall and colder temperatures, the Friday evening rush hour could be a slippery, messy one.

While Cook and Will counties face a winter weather advisory from noon to 9 p.m. and Lake and DuPage counties until 6 p.m., northwest Indiana is expected to see intense lake-effect snow into the evening hours falling at a rate of at least 2 to 3 inches of snowfall per hour. The snow could conceivably total as much as 18 inches, according to the Tribune.

According to NBC Chicago, the southern suburbs could also see the impact of heavier snowfall akin to that expected in northwest Indiana.

The entire Chicagoland area is expected to see higher winds as the snow falls during the afternoon, NBC reports.

Temperature-wise, CBS Chicago reports that the cold will stall out around 32 degrees, but overnight the low could drop to a chilly 18 degrees. Saturday's high is only expected to reach 25.

Chicago's winter has thus far been one of the warmest on record in the city.

7 Drool-Worthy Designer Doghouses

2012-02-10T17:09:43Z

These digs are fit for a King, Princess, Duchess, Duke, Lady ... you get the idea.

WATCH: Over 50 Pink Flamingos Found Dead In France

2012-02-10T16:39:47Z

A cold spell which has frozen much of Europe and killed hundreds of people has claimed its latest victims.

55 pink flamingos, unable to fly out of frozen water, were found dead in southern France this week.

Rescuers were able to save several weakened flamingos and send them to a bird park, according to Reuters.

The rescued flamingos were wrapped in black cloth and transported in cardboard boxes by members of the League for Protection of Birds, reported the Daily Mail.

One rescuer explained to Reuters, "These birds have suffered from the cold wave. The 10 days of cold have weakened them, and so their energy reserves have reduced. And what happened was that on Monday, we had winds of [75 miles per hour] and so the birds were not able to flee the peak of the cold and all the ponds of the region have frozen." He added that this was the most dead flamingos they had recovered at once since 1985.

Other mass animal deaths have puzzled officials in recent weeks. 99 whales stranded themselves on a beach in New Zealand last week. Only 17 were successfully rescued.

In the U.S., 129 common dolphins beached themselves along the shores of Cape Cod, Massachusetts over the past three weeks. The U.S. Northeast's largest ever "single-species event" left more than 90 dolphins dead or euthanized.

Check out the slideshow below of bizarre mass animal deaths:

PHOTOS: 3D Images Before And After An Earthquake

2012-02-10T16:10:37Z

Science/AAS

By: Charles Q. Choi, OurAmazingPlanet Contributor
Published: 02/09/2012 02:02 PM EST on OurAmazingPlanet

Laser scans of Earth's land surface taken from aircraft have now yielded the most comprehensive before-and-after picture of an earthquake yet, scientists revealed today (Feb. 9).

These kinds of scans before and after large quakes may help reveal where exactly the quakes ruptured the Earth down to a scale of just a few inches, which may help experts prepare for the hazards of such quakes, researchers said.

Scientists from the United States, Mexico and China working with the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping flew over the area struck by the magnitude-7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake in northern Mexico on April 4, 2010. The quake produced a 74-mile-long (120 kilometer) rupture through Baja California, Mexico.

This earthquake did not happen on a major fault, like the San Andreas, but ran through a series of smaller faults in the Earth's crust. Over the past century, most of the damaging earthquakes on continents have arisen from such multiple-fault ruptures. [10 Biggest Earthquakes in History]

"We can recognize their activity from how they disrupt the landscape, but we don't have a good way of assessing the potential size of earthquakes they produce, because they tend to rupture together with other, nearby faults in a complicated way," said researcher Michael Oskin, a geologist at the University of California, Davis. "These types of earthquakes can be especially dangerous if they occur near an urban area that is not well prepared."

Before and after

The research team scanned the area with LIDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, which bounces a stream of laser pulses off the ground. New, airborne LIDAR equipment can measure surface features to within a few inches.

The scientists finished a detailed scan over about 140 square miles (360 square km) in less than three days. With this data they were able to discover and map the several faults, including a previously unknown one. Since the Mexican government scanned this area with LIDAR back in 2006, they were also able to compare the old and new data to identify just how the many faults in the area reacted.

"This gives new insight into how faults link together to produce large earthquakes, and how geologic structures incrementally grow these events -- for example, folding of rocks and growth of topography and basins around faults," Oskin told OurAmazingPlanet.

The laser scan revealed warping of the ground surface next to the faults that previously could not easily be detected. For example, it revealed folding above the previously unknown Indiviso fault running beneath agricultural fields in the floodplain of the Colorado River. "This would be very hard to see in the field," Oskin said.

Using a virtual-reality facility at the University of California, Davis, the research team handled and viewed data from the survey to see exactly where the ground moved and by how much.

"We can immerse ourselves into the 3D data set, down to the individual point measurements -- all 3.6 billion of them for the post-earthquake data set," Oskin said.

The scans revealed how seven of these small faults came together to cause a major earthquake.

"We can learn so much about how earthquakes work by studying fresh fault ruptures," Oskin said. "In this case, we have learned a great deal about how the rocks surrounding faults deform, which will give us better insight into how faults link together."

Scanning the San Andreas

Airborne LIDAR scans have also been conducted of the San Andreas system and other active faults in the western United States.

"We are already using these data to better document the prehistoric record of activity on these faults," Oskin said. "When an earthquake happens in one of these areas, there will be a new scan conducted and a comparison made. This comparison will be even more revealing than the one we published, because both data sets will be high resolution. In our case, the pre-earthquake data set was relatively low resolution."

Future work can also model the interactions of the various faults that slipped in the 2010 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake, "to develop better projections of how future, complex multi-fault ruptures may occur," Oskin added.

The scientists detailed their findings in the Feb. 10 issue of the journal Science.

Over 70 Pets, Including Rats, Hedgehog And Chinchilla, Rescued From Fire

2012-02-10T16:10:02Z

MOUNT HEALTHY, Ohio — Several dozen animals have found temporary shelter after Ohio firefighters rescued more than 70 pets from a house fire in a Cincinnati suburb.

Authorities responding to the Thursday morning fire found a menagerie of about a dozen snakes, 18 rats, a hedgehog, a chinchilla, birds, rabbits and others creatures. Most of the animals survived the fire at the Mount Healthy home, although one iguana and a couple of cats died.

Pet owner Nikki Hagaman, who volunteers at The Animal House pet store that also rescues animals, was not at home when the fire broke out. She said she had at least 77 pets.

"I can't say no," she told The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Hagaman told the media she believes a heat bulb used to keep her reptiles warm may have started the fire. Many of the rescued pets were taken to the pet store after the fire.

A Colerain Township family also offered to care for almost three dozen of the animals. Adam Charles and his wife took in some ferrets, guinea pigs, rats and others. Charles told WCPO-TV that the animals are adjusting to their new surroundings.

He said one of the rats has a broken back and the ferrets were coughing and sneezing from inhaling too much smoke.

Walmart Fined For 'Unacceptable' Workplace Violations

2012-02-10T15:59:43Z

In recent years, Walmart has taken some steps to try to turn around its reputation as the company that everyone loves to hate through its sustainability initiatives, low-cost banking services and increased community donations.

But the mega-retailer still has a long way to go, judging by its repeat violations of workplace safety and health standards at some stores.

This week, it was fined $365,000 by the Occupational and Safety Health Administration for 24 alleged violations at a single store in Rochester, New York. The penalty stems from multiple inspections initiated after one complaint.

Among the alleged violations were those for obstructed exits, lack of eye and face protection for workers, lack of information and training on hazardous chemicals and an unguarded grinder. OSHA's area director, Arthur Dube, said in a statement that the size of the fines was due to the fact that the conditions are similar to those at nine other Walmart locations in New York and eight other states. The company was cited for similar violations between 2008 and 2010 at stores around the country, from Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Fargo, North Dakota, reports the Occupational Safety and Health Reporter.

"This situation is unacceptable," said Dube. "A corporate employer must take effective and proactive steps to assess, correct and prevent the recurrence of hazards at all of its locations."

Walmart released a statement on Tuesday, saying: "The safety of our customers and our associates is a top priority for us and we've put in place policies and training in our stores with that in mind. We're taking these claims seriously and looking into them to determine if any mistakes were made and, if so, what we can do to correct them."

The company is also taking some heat on another front this week. After the electrocution death of a Brazilian immigrant subcontractor doing demolition work at a store in Boston, Romulo de Oliveira Santos' family is trying to hold Walmart accountable for what they call unsafe practices at its construction sites. Walmart is contesting the claims.

Does Goldman's Subprime Trade Violate Volcker?

A test of the Volcker Rule's ability to stop banks from making trades with their own money may be the recent purchase of a $6.2 billion portfolio of subprime mortgage securities by Goldman Sachs (who else?). Back in 2010 the firm infamously paid $550 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that it bet against virtually worthless mortgage-backed securities that it was selling to investors.

In this latest deal, Goldman bought the packaged securities from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which is unloading assets it gained through the bailout of AIG. Goldman "held the bulk of the portfolio overnight before moving to sell the bonds en masse," according to Reuters. "While there was strong demand from Goldman clients, by doing so the Wall Street bank took the risk of events in Europe roiling markets and the value of those assets falling in a short period of time."

A tough interpretation of the Volcker Rule may ban such trades, Stanford University finance professor Darrell Duffie told Reuters. Goldman insists that the trade was always intended to benefit its clients. And financial writer Cate Long tweeted on Thursday night:

Quick Hits

* "Restaurant A" -- How Bill Marler's Food Safety News tied the salmonella outbreak to Taco Bell.

* A brass foundry in southern Wisconsin was slapped by OSHA with 10 alleged safety violations for failing to protect workers from exposure to metal dust, reports the Chicago Tribune.

* Next week marks the deadline to submit comments on 13 different proposed Dodd-Frank rules, from Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulations on retail commodity transactions to the SEC prohibition against conflicts of interest in some securitizations.

* Dallas Maverick owner Mark Cuban is due to be deposed today in the SEC's case against him for insider trading.