From the NYT courtesy of of Margory Cohen: “Fresh from a victory in Chicago, where the City Council voted last week to ban the sale of foie gras, animal rights activists have set their sights on Philadelphia, where they are collecting signatures on a petition to ban the delicacy there. Their influence on Whole Foods …
Author: Steve Bodio
Jaguars
Reid sent this story on collaring border jaguars. “A team of government scientists has voted to capture one of a handful of jaguars known to live in the United States, drawing protests from environmental groups. “The scientists want to follow the jaguar’s movements, along river corridors or through mountain ranges, to help authorities figure out …
Can Starlings Speak?
This NYT story suggests that the way Starlings process and arrange sounds may illuminate the origins of speech. Some prominent linguists, including Noam Chomsky, disagree (and Chomsky’s linguistics make a lot more sense than his politics). But a defender of the experiments dismisses Chomsky. “Chomsky may find this trivial, but that is a bit like …
“Grolar”
A hybrid between a grizzly and a polar bear has been shot in Canada– species that have been separated for more than 200,000 years. Nervous about warming in the arctic yet? “”Everybody thought it was a polar bear, and then they started looking more and more and they seen [sic] other features that resembled some …
Genghis and other amusements..
While I try to get “things” done– not just fun things, either– O & P have been digging up things to delight their readers. Peculiar tells us how certain parts of Mt. St. Helens have been growing four to five feet a day! Meanwhile, Odious has encountered a song about Genghis Khan’s genetic legacy: When …
Porumbeii
Palomas, palombe, palumbus….. a Romanian pigeon site. Because Romanian IS a Romance language. Someone told me this was “Portuguese”. I went to it and more or less understood a lot, having French and some Latin, Spanish, Italian. But it looked… weird. Then I saw the “ro” in the url…. The “Carunculat”– the pigeon in the …
Iraq Iran
Re Rod Dreher’s Crunchy Con, a remark from Alan Dershowitz: “History may well conclude that America and Britain fought the wrong preventive war against a country that posed no real threat, and that fighting that wrong war stopped them fighting the right preventive war against a country that did pose a danger to world peace.” …
New Chernobyl?
David Satter wonders if another Chernobyl is possible in Russia, given their technology and a persistent culture of secrecy and unaccountability. Of course, in a fascinating book, Mary Mycio argues that Chernobyl’s effects were more complex and less simplistically devastating than the pop press or Greenpeace might have it (the area is now a vast …
Puppy Numbers
Mothers-to-Be How many pups will our Girls have? Steve and Val Kaeppler, fellow NM breeders, found a database based on 2080 saluki litters. 1 pup: 89 litters2 pups: 1043 pups: 1364 pups:1975 pups:3146 pups: 4197 pups3588 pups: 2669 pups: 12310 pups 5111 pups: 1812 pups: 413 pups: 1 Lash had six lurcher pups so I …
Redtail
Rebecca has a savage, lovely pic up, a wild redatail with a grosbeak right outside her window. “I try to replay it in my head and realize that even though I was looking, I experienced the moment rather than seeing it, too primal of an instant to do anything but react. I only saw red …