One problem is that the border fences roads and railways with their associated embankments and cuttings form impassable barriers to animals such as the saiga antelope for
which Kazakhstan is the main range state. Another problem is that better transport leads to more disturbance and encroachment of human settlements into previously unspoilt habitat.
Animal numbers are dwindling habitats are becoming fragmented and poaching is taking its toll; an insensitively constructed road would be just another nail in the coffin.
Only 20 years ago a million saigas roamed the steppes before undergoing a spectacular collapse of more than 90 percent in the 1990s leaving only about 50000 animals.
and the males'horns used in traditional medicines was the main driver. Numbers are now back up to 160000 in five separate
which is also keen to develop its infrastructure by building railways to serve the country's mines
The animals also do not know how to negotiate railways so tired and malnourished and unable to reach the best feeding grounds
The solution could be minor changes to the construction of border fences the main purpose of which is to keep vehicles out rather than animals in by raising the height of the lowest fence wire.
and incorporating crossing points along railways with cattle guards to stop animals erring onto the tracks would allow animals to migrate unimpeded.
and meeting international environmental obligations by making the minimal adjustments required to ensure that 21st-century transport especially
and creates holes in roads that serve as hazards for cars and tractors. Â $1 million hunt But the state of New mexico isn't letting the pigs get away with those antics.
If they had the dexterity they'd be driving vehicles around. I mean these guys are really smart.
It freaks everybody out to train wild animals to do what you want but it surprised the heck out of all of us how much more feasible it was thought than we Bensen said.
By hitching a ride in these animals'digestive tracts the grasses'seeds can travel long distances establishing far-flung seagrass meadows.
And because water-dispersed plants can often travel farther than those dispersed by wind or plants the mangrove expansion could be very rapid the authors write in their paper.
since then due to the logistical challenge of traveling to these remote islands. 7 Most Misleading Animal Names A team of naturalists based at the College of Micronesia has conducted now the first-ever field study of the Mortlock Islands
About a third of these were thought to have been associated with international travel to endemic regions. So far 2013 has seen the biggest outbreak.
'In the film's trailer where some disturbing images are matched to beautiful prose Mcarthur says she feels like a war photographer
#Forest Snow Can Melt Faster Than Flakes In Open Fields (ISNS)--As fresh snow turns us into grumbling commuters
and they can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph (97 kph) in three seconds faster than most cars.
and their stomachs have four compartments that digest the leaves they eat. After a giraffe swallows a mouthful of leaves once a ball of already-chewed leaves
Hippos have an amphibious call that can travel through air and water and they have good hearing both above and below water.
or jacks and females are called does flyers or jills. Females can get pregnant immediately after giving birth.
and long sharp claws that help them climb tree trucks. Koalas'have five fingers one of which is an opposable thumb
Road vehicles are also a threat as devils are difficult to see on roads. Odd facts about Tasmanian devils:
In fact the further south on the African plains you travel the farther apart the stripes on the zebras get.
and trained to pull carts for the circus. Zebras in a herd might all look alike
He earned much of his tuition by working in the kitchen of a local hotel. He concocted new recipes
and worked for the railroads always saving money and looking for a college that would accept him.
He took his lessons to former slaves turned sharecroppers by inventing the Jessup Wagon a horse-drawn classroom
In his words oeit is not the style of clothes one wears neither the kind of automobile one drives nor the amount of money one has in the bank that counts.
The newborn iceberg measures about 278 square miles (720 square kilometers) and was seen by Terrasar-X an earth-observing satellite operated by the German Space agency (DLR.
Scientists with NASA's Operation Icebridgefirst discovered a giant crack in the Pine Island Glacier in October 2011 as they were flying over
Milk and cheese were consumed probably not due to transportation problems and the cattle's low milk yield during that time Redding said.
At the time when Christopher Columbus landed in The americas it's said that squirrels could travel from tree to tree from the Northeast to the Mississippi without ever having to touch the ground Chris Roddick chief arborist at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New york told Livescience in 2009.
In 1895 a retired Connecticut clergyman named Birdsey Grant Northrop went to Japan and brought his love of trees.
Northrop had researched previously forestry in Europe triggering a wave of environmental self-examination back in Connecticut
At 78 Northrop convinced the Japanese Minister of Education to establish Arbor day in that country. He also evangelized about trees in Australia Canada and Europe according to the Connecticut state government.
and some airplanes don't have a 13th row. There's a reason why the Beijing Olympics began at exactly 8: 08:08 p m. local time on 8/8/08:
and stay in the same rooms at the same hotels following a big win. They think that their success must have something to do with circumstances beyond their abilities.
That tradition has been lost as people even in rural areas depend on fast food food banks and gas stations for the majority of the food for their families.
and Anubis. Shaw writes that they also found on the lowest terrace a relief showing Hatshepsut as a sphinx oetriumphing over her enemies and another oedescribing the quarrying and transportation of two granite obelisks from the quarries at Aswan.
Voyage to Punt This voyage to Punt (also known as oegod s land) was a key foreign relations triumph during Hatshepsut s reign.
Egyptians had made voyages to it for centuries by Hatshepsut s time. The depiction of Punt at the Deir el-Bahari temple shows oescenes of the Puntite s village (with) conical reed-built huts built on poles above the ground entered via ladders Shaw writes adding that palms
An ancient record of the voyage indicates that it was wildly successful. oethe loading of the ships very heavily with marvels of the country of Punt;
For example the 2011 report decried one project as researching whether girls like dolls and boys like trucks.
NASA comes under particular scrutiny in the 2013 Wastebook. The space agency has a budget of about $17 billion a year and represented 0. 48 percent of the federal budget in 2012.
In the 1960s when the space race was at its peak NASA funding represented as much as 4. 4 percent of federal spending.
One project criticized by Coburn is NASA's Countermeasure and Functional Testing Study a project the senator describes as paying people to lie in bed all day.
Well sort of. In fact the Countermeasure and Functional Testing study is part of NASA's long-term bed-rest research that seeks to mimic the antigravity environment of space On earth by positioning participants in bed head tilted slightly downward day in and day out.
This particular project is a 70-day study to test whether exercise can help stave off the loss of muscle
The findings are important both for the health of astronauts doing long stints aboard the International Space station and for future spaceflight missions.
while lying in bed NASA researchers told the Houston Chronicle in September. After 70 days in bed patients need two weeks of rehab in order to walk safely again.
Another NASA project under fire is a $125000 grant for intergalactic planetary pizza tasting. The goal of this project is to develop shelf-stable palatable 3d printed foods for a mission to Mars
What Astronauts Eat Coburn criticizes both projects as well as several other NASA efforts for being focused on a mission to Mars arguing the agency is nowhere near launching such a journey.
But NASA has to take the long view said Michael Halpern the program manager of the Center for Science and Democracy at the science advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists.
The 10 Most Visited National parks Coburn also criticizes NASA funding for a study on how climate change affects the migration of red crabs on Christmas Island in the Indian ocean.
Perhaps not but the crabs are a test case for how global warming will alter the migration of tropical species according to a Princeton university news release on the study nd Earth science is under the umbrella of NASA's mission.
But between 1999 and 2010 these forest fires burned more than 33000 square miles (85500 square kilometers) an area larger than the state of South carolina according to a NASA release.
or frequency of these understory fires Doug Morton a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Md. and the study's lead author said in the statement.
and then gradually disappear as the rain forest recovers the NASA statement said. NASA scientists are using an instrument on the Terra satellite to detect these signs of damage which include slight alterations in the amount and condition of foliage present.
These fires kill between 10 and 50 percent of the trees in the areas they burn
and are likely an important source of carbon emissions that hasn t been accounted adequately for in climate models according to NASA.
and other human sources NASA said. Â Emailâ Douglas Mainâ or follow him onâ Twitterâ orâ Google+.
New roads have made the desert accessible so we were able to access lands people had died trying to visit even a decade ago Putnam said.
Putnam and his team then traveled to the easternmost part of the desert to an enormous dry lakebed called Lop Nor.
Translation by Gloria Ferrari from Alcman and the Cosmos of Sparta University of Chicago Press 2008) A key event on Sparta s road to becoming a more militaristic society was its conquest of the land of Messenia
and stands in the foremost spears relentlessly all thought of foul flight completely forgotten and has trained well his heart to be steadfast
they drove carriages in processions and at the Hyacinthia a festival of Apollo and Hyacinthus they raced in two-horse chariots.
Sparta in time developed a system of dual kingship (two kings ruling at once. Their power was counterbalanced by the elected board of ephors (who may only serve a single one-year term.
The South took its time jumping on the Thanksgiving bandwagon as the holiday was seen as a Yankee invention.
Boats and cars were tossed around like toys roofs were torn off houses and glass shattered everywhere;
Edwards founded the Zion Traveler Cooperative Center which he organized in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina
This story was generated during a trip paid for by American Associates Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
My father used to travel for work and when he arrived in a new city he'd open up the phone book
Goldenfeld is leading a new NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) team that aims to provide a clearer understanding of this early stage of evolution.
This story was provided byâ Astrobiology Magazine a web-based publication sponsored by the NASA astrobiology program o
because birth defects in the external genitalia are among the most common congenital defects in humans said study researcher Martin Cohn a developmental biologist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Florida.
By combining the techniques researchers could collaborate with wildlife rangers to protect certain hotspots Wasser told Livescience.
The United states also is a destination for illegal ivory according to the study. Two things must be done to stop poaching said Richard Ruggiero an expert on elephant poaching with the U s. Fish
In Washington D c agriculture department official David Fairchild imported 100 Japanese cherry trees in 1906 to his own Maryland property to see how well they grew.
The researchers note that smaller regions are more likely to have covered fewer roads by Google street view
whose symptoms are identifiable from the road including the horse chestnut leaf miner or ash dieback fungus.
Mandy Davis a mother of two who lives in a nearby Brooklyn neighborhood traveled to Prospect Park last week on a crisp afternoon to check out the new addition letting her 1-and 3-year-olds get dirty as they explored stumps
The Scientist Who Helped Save New york's Subway from Sandy It's important for people to know that they have each other's back Kosty said.
Landing is arguably the most nerve-racking element of any flight. To execute a safe landing a pilot needs to know the plane s speed and its distance from the landing surface.
The pilot s challenge is to bring the aircraft s speed close to zero at the exact moment
and analysed the speed and trajectory of the flight and landing. They found that the closer the bee got to the target the slower she flew.
and velocity so one day soon we may even use this relatively simple algorithm to land aircraft on many types of surfaces without the need to know the exact distance from the aircraft to the landing zone.
and landing one day we may be able to land remotely piloted aircraft on uneven vertical surfaces such as part of a collapsed building allowing us to locate potential survivors.
Produits de Sud works with village leaders to train unemployed youth creating an entirely new stream of income for rural Malians to supplement subsistence millet farming
Strongest Case Yet for Human-Caused Global Warming Produit du Sud's farmers have been stunned to realize the seemingly ordinary trees of the Sahel are drivers of economic growth.
#Human-Powered Vehicles Can Drive Meaningful Change (Op-Ed) Mark Archibald professor of mechanical engineering at Grove City College in Pennsylvania
and race vehicles they have designed. The vehicles negotiate tight turns slaloms rough pavement and grocery stops.
Peak speeds are often around 45 mph (72 km h). ) The men and women designing and competing bring new ideas and innovations each year.
None of the vehicles uses a drop of gasoline. They don t use batteries that are charged via the electric grid.
These vehicles are powered by the students legs and sometimes arms. The vehicles demonstrate remarkable engineering design and vehicle performance.
The event Is powered the Human Vehicle Challenge (HPVC) which has been held annually for each of the last 30 years in the United states
and has expanded to Latin america and Pakistan. India will be added later this year. The American Society of Mechanical engineers (ASME) organizes
of which involve vehicles of one type or another. There are races for off-road vehicles Formula 1 race cars and snowmobiles.
There is a competition for high-mileage vehicles which look a lot like human-powered vehicles but run on gasoline and get about 1300 miles (2100 kilometers) per gallon.
Yet the ASME HPVC stands out among all of these competitions in part because of the structure of the competition itself which gives student teams much more design freedom to innovate
and engineer creative solutions. It also stands out because it encouragesâ womenâ a group significantly underrepresented in mechanical engineering to participate
And it stands out because of the social and environmental ramifications of human-powered vehicles which offer very tangible benefits to people in both developed and undeveloped nations.
At about the same time society was recognizing the value of human-powered vehicles as sustainable transportation
and the competition added a second class of vehicles for utilitarian uses. Â For the first few years teams entering that class struggled to develop viable technologies that would lead to high-performance practical vehicles.
By 2011 the utility vehicles had improved to the point that the vehicle classes were combined. Today successful HPVC teams must design
and build vehicles that are both fast and practical for daily transportation. They compete in four events an engineering design event a speed event an innovation event
and an endurance event that demonstrate all aspects of the design. Â All real engineering projects involve constraints.
because a team of students developing a competitive vehicle must learn those skills in order to even get to the competition.
 The vehicles that students design and race are variations on the familiar bicycle. Most are recumbent with riders sitting down in a more aerodynamic position than they would on standard bicycles.
Most also have aerodynamic fairings to increase speed. Some have three or even four wheels.
Some are sophisticated highly with lighting systems anti-skid brakes and regenerative braking. All are powered by human muscle power alone
and develop efficient sustainable and practical human-powered vehicles. Â In developed countries those types of vehicles along with more conventional bicycles can be used to relieve traffic congestion improve public health reduce airâ pollutionâ and significantly lower transportation costs.
In developing countries human-powered vehicles can provide affordable basic transportation for personal transport deliveries and even ambulance services.
The HPVC mission encourages engineering students to consider the social environmental and economic benefits of the vehicles they design.
The result is vehicles that are affordable clean and safe. They are faster and more comfortable than standard bicycles and many offer protection from foul weather.
 Some particularly within the United states have questioned the benefits of human-powered vehicles. The individual cost advantages are clear and significant.
Consider a new college graduate who purchases a human-powered vehicle rather than an automobile.
On average he or she will save $5000 to $6000 each year money that can go a long way toward repaying student loans
or saving for a new house. Â In addition more than 9000 lbs. (4100 kilograms) of greenhouse-gas emissions would be avoided.
If 5 percent of the U s. population were to switch from automobiles to human-powered vehicles for most of their trips the aggregate difference would be a reduction of 31 million tons (28 million metric tons) of greenhouse
 Studies have shown that people who commute by bicycle live longer and have improved cardiovascular health compared to automobile commuters.
Additionally in many parts of the world human-powered vehicles are used to meet basic transportation needs.
A lack of infrastructure and prohibitive cost often make the automobile a nonviable choice and transit systems may not exist.
 Students participating in the HPVC are designing transportation solutions for a world faced with economic stress and poverty climate change and strife over energy supplies.
They learn to solve problems technical managerial budgetary and logistic in a structured and rational way.
They learn to work together as a team to accomplish a challenging goal. Women and men work together learning to respect each other s contributions and talents.
Nonetheless the participants in the ASME Human-Powered Vehicle Challenge are better for it. They are better engineers.
To reach this location people had to travel 6000 kilometers (3700 miles) if they came from the Atlantic coast
and stayed for an oddly long time in the atmosphereforcing widespread flight cancellations for days. Serendipitously marine biogeochemist Eric Achterberg at the University of Southampton in England and his colleagues were taking part in a series of research cruises in the Iceland Basin region of the North Atlantic ocean both during and after the eruption.
These three cruises allowed the researchers to measure iron concentrations at the ocean's surface before during
and after the eruption in areas directly influenced by the plume of iron-rich ash.
Our cruise was scheduled three years in advance and it was just pure luck we were in the Iceland Basin
instead or as well for instance fractures in the wood or collapse of the channels in which the sap travels.
The reports will help countries improve their greenhouse gas emissions inventories Jean-Pascal van Ypersele vice chair of the IPCC said today (Oct 18) at a news conference announcing the final reports.
and also how natural systems absorb some of them Van Ypersele said. Under the Kyoto Protocol developed countries report their greenhouse emissions
The IPCC report provides guidance on how to meet those requirements in a more complete and more accurate way.
but we give very relevant guidance for the total amount of carbon that cannot be exceeded in terms of emissions in order to stay below 2 degrees Celsius 3. 6 degrees Fahrenheit.
The nucleus is the compartment where in animals plants and fungi the DNA is stored. In bacteria the DNA just floats around in the cell.
Organisms are built not of continuous matter like plasticine we are made up of tiny balloons called cells.
So each block is more like a smartphone than a balloon each block has its own computer code or DNA genome.
and Rome serving tourists older olive oils are sold at the same prices as the more recent harvest.
Luckily you no longer have to travel to Italy for high-quality extra virgin olive oils as they are now being produced in the United states. They're more likely to be fresh
 Locusts are passive fliers and can't get far flying into the breeze; however under the right conditions they can fly up to 90 miles (150 kilometers) per day Cressman said.
because they have traveled already quite some distance Cressman said. In Photos: Nature's Biggest Pests However a small swarm could reach northeastern Egypt
It was seven months before the team could get to the site with a truck and trailer because the nearby Redwillow River was so high.
But in 2011 the researchers drove a truck across the river winched the boulder onto a trailer
and brought it out of the field. While Bell was preparing the fossil he discovered something even more amazing than skin impressions.
when the company allowed single woman to travel to Jamestown which in its early years had been a largely male-only settlement.
 In his book Kelso recalled some British tourists who came to talk to him
The british tourists were startled that the first English settlement which paved the way to modern America was made so simply. oeyou mean that s it?
One of The british tourists asked. oeno there was just dirt Kelso answered. oebut you know what else?
the tourists exclaimed in unison oebrilliant indeed! Owen Jarus is based a writer in Toronto Canada. His main areas of expertiseâ are history archaeology and urban & regional planning.
Researchers are launching javelin-shaped devices out of airplanes to help answer that question and find out what's going on in some of the frozen continent's most inaccessible places.
though it also has wings like a bat. Some say it has a tail like a lizard;
He painted a kangaroo green attached fake wings to the helpless creature and had exhibited it to the public The 1909 hoax
The most obvious biologically implausible feature is its wings: they would need to be much bigger
you'd have better luck putting butterfly wings on a rhino. Most images of the Jersey Devil look like a monster that a high school Dungeons & dragons player might dream up as a composite of different unrelated animals
Eyewitnesses who described huge wings may have seen sandhill cranes (which can stand four feet tall and have an enormous wingspan)
I flew over the boreal forest in a small four-seat airplane and watched colossal tree-cutting operations clearing thousands of acres of trees flying over miles of virgin forests that had already been leased for new mines.
But soon there would be millions more acres of clear-cut trees and millions more gallons of toxic waste that would leach into the rivers from tailings ponds
therefore become a major driver of global greenhouse-gas emissions. For example Goldman sachs recently acknowledged that without Keystone XL lower prices for tar sands
and higher transport costs will result in the cancelation or deferment of tar-sands expansion projects.
when defending their hive and minor disturbances like a lawn mower or a moving car even as far away as 100 feet (30 meters) can trigger an attack.
In the event of a bee attack victims are advised to run as fast as they can toward an enclosed area like a car or building;
and traveled by heavy steamships. The lake was a hub of commerce until the railroads were built
and eclipsed the steamers as a way to move shipment. Because of the lake s depth and the warm weather that comes in from the southwest Lake ontario rarely freezes over.
In 1544 another Spaniard Cristobal de Pedraza the Bishop of Honduras claimed to have glimpsed a white city in his travels;
Elkins and his team flew over the rain forests in an airplane shooting laser pulses at the ground in a method called light detection and ranging (Lidar.
The Lidar data reveals roads canals and mounds which appear to cover archaeological features. There are two large settlements
There are no roads and a journey by foot and canoe would take weeks. Nevertheless Elkins said he worries about the publicity spawned by the Ciudad Blanca legend too.
Elkins Fisher and their team are planning an on-the-ground expedition to the ruins by the end of the year (they'll reach the area by helicopter and bushwhacking.
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