SanDiego6.com also obtained a photo of Holmes, which appears to have been taken several years ago.

Holmes grew up in San Diego.

After years of legal wrangling, the U.S. government says it will designate critical habitat for the jaguar

Jaguars, the third-largest cats after lions and tigers and the biggest in the Western Hemisphere, used to live here. In the 1700s and 1800s people spotted them in Arizona, New Mexico, California and Texas. Sometimes the cats roamed as far east as North Carolina and as far north as Colorado.

As humans have encroached on their territory, the endangered cats’ range has shifted south. Today it stretches from northern Argentina into Mexico’s Sonoran Desert. But they cross into the American Southwest frequently enough for some conservationists to argue that they deserve critical habitat protection. Now, after years of legal wrangling, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has agreed. “We do plan on proposing to designate some critical habitat,” says Steve Spangle, field supervisor for FWS in Phoenix. “But we don’t know yet where or how much.” The agency plans to announce its decision in July.

The question of whether or not jaguars deserve critical habitat reflects a broader debate in conservation circles. How does one prioritize spending among the many species that are slowly disappearing from the planet? Many experts believe the best way to help the species is to increase resources south of the border, where jaguars live and breed. But Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that sued FWS to designate critical habitat, says the goal should be to help jaguars repopulate parts of the U.S. where they have gone extinct, especially since dozens were killed under a federal predator-extermination program that continued into the 1960s. It is important to look at a species’ historical range and not just at “a snapshot in time,” Robinson contends.

Whatever critical habitat the government grants most likely will be small. In April an outline prepared by an advisory group to FWS focused on an area that includes the southeastern corner of Arizona and a tiny slice of New Mexico’s southwestern corner, neglecting New Mexico’s Gila National Forest and Arizona’s Mogollon Rim, which Robinson says are prime jaguar habitat.

The subject “can be debated for a couple of more generations while the species goes extinct,” says Howard Quigley, a co-leader of the advisory group convened by FWS and executive director of the jaguar program at the wild cat conservation group Panthera. “But we need an area in which to focus now and get recovery actions under way.” At least it’s a start. Source: Scientific American

The treasure includes monumental stone steles and 20 high “seats of power,” stone chairs used by hierarchs of the Manteño culture, which had its era of splendor between the 9th and 14th centuries, roughly parallel to the rise of the Incas in Peru.

In Ecuador only three seats of this kind remain, the Heritage Ministry said.

Several "seats of power," stone chairs used by hierarchs of the Manteño civilization on display at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington - Credit: EFE

“This is the largest collection of Manteño culture” in existence, the Cerro de Hojas-Jaboncillo project director Jorge Marcos told Efe.

Cerro de Hojas-Jaboncillo, an archaeological site discovered by American explorer Marshall Saville in 1906, is where the items in Washington were found before their removal to the United States.

“We were familiar with the scholarly papers about the pieces and we knew that the National Museum of the American Indian had an important Ecuadorian archaeological collection, but we didn’t know how much or what its value was,” Heritage Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa said in a press conference Monday.

Knowledge of these works was limited to published references and the reports of a handful of Ecuadorian archaeologists who were able to see them including Marcos, who examined them in their original boxes in a New York warehouse in 1971 when he was studying at the University of Illinois.

Last week he saw them again together with Espinosa in the conservation rooms of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington.

“What we found there is of the very finest quality,” the minister said, adding that some of the pieces are absolutely unique and of greater value than any in Ecuador.

Cerro de Hojas-Jaboncillo, which covers some 3,500 hectares (8,600 acres), is the country’s largest archaeological area. It is located in a humid area along the coast where its pre-Columbian inhabitants excavated subterranean silos and practiced intensive agriculture, according to the experts.

Saville came upon the remains of that culture in the same way that his compatriot Hiram Bingham, a Yale university professor, discovered Machu Picchu in Peru five years later – led by local guides.

Peru was able to get Yale to return the archaeological pieces after a long litigation and a campaign of international pressure.

For now, Ecuador has chosen to cooperate with the U.S. museum, though Espinosa did not rule out that in the future her country might ask for “part of that collection.”

Saville took the pieces out of the country legally, Marcos said.

Source: Fox News Latino [May 15, 2012]

Steve Wright of the Seminole County Fire Department, left, and D. M. Shaw of the State Department of Agriculture assessed the tree remains on Monday.

Steven D. Barnes/Orlando Sentinel, via Associated Press The tree standing tall in 2004.

“I’m crying,” she said, with a laugh, as her eyes reddened. “When I first came here, I had no idea it would be as amazing as it was. No idea it would be as impactful.”

Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel, via Associated Press The tree, burning and charred on Monday.

Around town, these last two theories were met with skepticism and a touch of derision. The Senator, which was the only tree in the small park to catch fire, was equipped with a lightning rod. And if the tree had been struck by lightning and smoldered for two weeks, residents said, somebody surely would have seen or smelled it. As for friction, that notion drew nothing but smirks.

Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel, via Associated Press The 3,500-year-old cypress, the only one in Big Tree Park to catch fire, was equipped with a lightning rod to protect it from the elements.

The revered tree wasn’t just old; it was huge. At nearly 18 feet in diameter, it was so large it would take a passel of children holding hands to surround it.

Named for Senator M. O. Overstreet, who donated the land to Seminole County to use as a park in 1927, the Senator has long been a landmark for Floridians. It survived the logging epidemic, which claimed many of the giant trees that once stood in the county. (The Senator may have been spared because it was hollow, a condition that occurred as the tree aged.) It endured centuries of nasty hurricanes, including one in 1925 that lopped off 40 feet from the top.

Back then, four decades before Disney World rose from swampland, the towering bald cypress was the star attraction in these parts. Visitors arrived on horse and buggy and then jumped from log to log to get a close-up glimpse of the tree.

Florida State Archives, via Orlando Sentinel, via Associated Press In this 1920s image, two men gave an indication of the girth of the Senator, named after Senator M. O. Overstreet, who donated land for a park in 1927.

Now children are brought here on field trips to gawk skyward and imagine what Florida was like back when it was nothing but forest and swamp and Indians were its only inhabitants. Families have always come to snap photos, and nature-lovers arrived on pilgrimages.

What remains now is a trunk, split in half, and a charred shard of wood that shoots 30 feet into the air. The remnants of the tree lie split, on their sides, black and sooty. Outside the gates of the park sits a little tribute of flowers with a sign reading “Rest in Peace Senator.” The park is closed for now as investigators determine what caused the fire.

But the new Florida had long been a too-quick walk away from the Senator. Traffic whizzes by in front of the park and fast-food joints sit right up the street. And though the tree was revered by some, competition from modern life had dwarfed its appeal a good while back.

There are not many awe-inspiring things left, Ms. Wyckoff said. “It was crazy, insane, you can’t imagine how large it was,” she said.

Yet only 40 feet from the Senator looms an understudy: Lady Liberty, now the park’s tallest cypress. It is 89 feet tall and not nearly as imposing, but in this time of transitory celebrity, its moment has arrived.

Author: LIZETTE ALVAREZ | Source: nytimes [January 23, 2012]

18th century engraving shows the different tribes that inhabited South America. Getty Images

The coordinator of the Central Amazônia project, who works in the Museu de Arqueologia e Antropologia da USP (Archaeologic and Anthropologic Museum, São Paulo University), Eduardo Neves, belives that around 5,5 million of persons lived in certain areas of the pre colombian Amazon where there were a great variation of languages and political organizations in their many villages.

The researcher of the Anthropology Department of at the University of Florida, Michael Heckenberger, studying areas of the Alto Xingu (Upper Xingu) made an estimated that 50,000 indigenous lived in an area of ​​20 square kilometers. He says: This consists of a larger population that we find in many countries of Europe today.

According the studies, the villages of the Alto Xingu was 10 or 15 times majors than that exist actually in the region. They were organized a central and circular square surrounded by tabas (huts). These huts were builded in a perfect ring along the periphery of the square, were surrounded by ditches to 2 km in length. Heckenberger still says that in the Alto Xingu, where today there is a village, there were 12.

Professor at University of Florida, Colombian researcher Augusto Oyuela-Caycedo, adds that in other regions of the Amazon, the settings were different, with linears villages, in front of the rivers. Regarding the organization, the communities were not exactly as tribes. They were more like societies in its infancy. Archaeological evidence indicates a state of expansion.

Handling of soil

One of the proofs of the existence of these bigger villages and their development on the first steps of a civilization process is the black soil. Oyuela explains: For many years it was thought that the black soil was the result of natural phenomena such as volcanic ash. The resistance to the idea that the black earth was resulted by human work came from a theory that the Amazon was largely an inhospitable place to the development of complex societies with large villages.

But the new discoveries have shown that there was the use of organic matter and coal burned at high temperatures to improve the quality of the Amazonian soil. The plantations were made in small amounts of land – spaces that were opened in the middle by large tracts of forests. Oyuela found black soil in the Alto Amazon (Upper Amazon), in 2005, near the city of Iquitos. The region, called Quistococha was a large village which occupied up to 20 hectares dated around the years 900 AD.

In regions such as the high river Madeira is found black soil dated from four thousand years. In the middle Amazon River were found pottery and evidence of agricultural occupations with over two thousand years and traces of nomadic culture of eight thousand years ago.

Author: Lygia Cabus| Source: brazilweirdnews[January 24, 2012]

The consultant also is recommending that Green Bay consider tougher rules to protect residents from industrial noise pollution.

A spokesman for Americold, which operates the warehouse at 1731 Morrow St., said the cold-storage company would evaluate the consultant’s findings.

“We intend to continue to be a good neighbor for many years to come,” Americold spokesman Leigh Parrish said.

Consultant Richard James, a noise control engineer hired by the city, said he is certain that Americold’s warehouse is creating the low-frequency noise that has troubled nearby residents.

James said he did not contact Americold for the study because he wanted to ensure that the company would not skew the results by changing its normal routine.

He recounted sitting in a car outside the warehouse during his research. “You could literally feel the car shake,” he said.

Alderman Andy Nicholson, who has been working on the noise issue for years, expressed confidence that the city’s consultant had solved the mystery surrounding the source.

Noting that he has heard similar noise pollution complaints elsewhere in Green Bay, Nicholson said he believes the city should consider adjusting its ordinances to protect people.

“Something has to be done,” he said.

The situation began in 2006 when residents Bob and Leona Ehrfurth started hearing a strange noise in their home at 2048 Mary Queen Road, about a mile south of Americold. Although barely audible at times, the recurring motor-like rumbling became such a nuisance that Leona Ehrfurth said it was causing her sleeplessness and headaches.

After about two years, the couple took their complaints to City Hall and persuaded the city to investigate. Unable to pinpoint the source, city officials hired James and paid him $4,300 to research the problem through his company, E-Coustic Solutions.

James spent two days and nights in and around the Ehrfurths’ home, using sound-measuring equipment to compare the noises they were hearing with those generated by the Americold facility.

The refrigerated warehouse had previously been identified as one potential source of the problem.

According to the study’s findings, the warehouse includes “several clusters of cooling fans” that generate both audible and low-frequency noises, some of which can be detected at the Ehrfurth home as “strong fluctuating tones.”

“There can be little doubt that the sounds propagating from the facility’s cooling system are the source,” the report states.

Contacted at their home, the Ehrfurths declined to comment.

Green Bay city officials plan to approach Americold to discuss the situation and to explore possible resolutions.

William Acker, a Green Bay engineer who assisted James with his research, said the city should pass more restrictive limits on industrial noise pollution.

Although Americold and other businesses could be required to spend money upgrading their operations, Acker said, government should protect people from noise so intrusive that it makes them ill inside their own homes.

“Is it right for that to happen?” he said. “I just don’t think it is.”

Author: Scott Cooper Williams | Source:greenbaypressgazette.com [January 12, 2012]

http://strangesoundsinthesky.com/ – the domain of which was registered (privately, I might add) 10/4/11, about the same time as this “phenomenon” started spreading.

The more I watched, the more similar I noticed the sounds seemed. Some where varried, but had the same base machine/trumpeting hollow-earthy reverberating sound. Which, was very suspect after about a day of “finding” the different videos. But, if they were blatantly faked…the first question that came to mind was…why? Then…who?

After milling it over, my neural-synapses made a quantum leap and, just like a particular smell reminds you of an exact feeling, one thing popped into mind – the Cloverfield movie heavy viral marketing strategy that preceded the movie itself. So, putting the two together in a nifty Google search, I found that at least one individual who performed a little CSI on the videos vs. sound contained in them, and came up with an interesting fact: all were faked, most very badly. Many more individuals have put together the “strange sound” phenomenon and J.J. Abrams’s love of viral marketing, and right now, that appears to coalesce into the reigning theory – Most, if not all, of these videos are probably viral marketing for the yet-unnamed Cloverfield sequel. In any event, the most popular videos have been proven to contain fake audio overlays…many are just natural sounds (animals, even a cymbal) slowed down with delay or reverberation effects added.

It should also be noted, and highly suspect, that there have been no actual reports to local, state, or federal authorities, nor any direct reports or coverage of these supposedly very public and should-be-heard-by-everyone events. The only witnesses, it appears, is the videographer(s), and, contrary to what may be stated in some of the videos, no one else has reported, or even seems to react, to the sounds in these videos.

Contrast this to the Phoenix Lights event that happened on one day, March 13, 1997, and by comparison on scale alone, has been documented several ways, appearing on countless TV shows and specials. (A show recently debunked the lights as military flares dropped behind, and disappearing behind, the mountain in the background). Yet, with all these “sound events” happening over widespread, very populated areas, and world-wide, I might add, there exists absolutely no additional coverage at all by anyone other than one videographer in each region. With all the instant recording devices and how they have changed the reporting landscape, it’s very improbable there are not copious, multiple views of the same event being shared all over the net. Remember the Reno air show tragedy? An accident that happened in a split second, and there were no less then 7 different angles I’ve seen, and who knows how many just didn’t make the airwaves.

continue reading..texasghosts.org

Author: KWRIGHT | Source: http: texasghosts [January 18, 2012]

Stimulant chemicals dubbed "bath salts" are increasingly injected for a high.

Yet that’s what happened to an unfortunate young woman who had injected the increasingly popular stimulant drug called “bath salts.”

The 34-year-old woman showed up at a New Orleans hospital with a painful, swollen arm after she attended a party. She had a small red puncture mark on her forearm.

The doctors diagnosed a skin infection and put her on intravenous antibiotics. Things got better. But two days later, the swelling suddenly returned. At that point, she told them that she had injected the bath salts (not to be confused with real bathing aids) at the party.

The doctors cut open the skin on the woman’s forearm and discovered a raging infection and dead muscle. They knew immediately that she was in serious trouble. As they cut skin farther up her arm in an effort to find healthy tissue, the infection was moving so fast they could see flesh dying right before their eyes.

In the end, doctors amputated the woman’s entire right arm and shoulder to stop the infection, and also performed a radical mastectomy and skin grafts. The woman survived, and is now in rehabilitation. Her case was reported online in the journal Orthopedics.

This tale certainly got Shots’ attention. Bath salts is a relatively new problem in the world of recreational drugs. The name covers several synthetic chemicals, including mephedrone and MDPV, short for methylenedioxypyrovalerone, that give a stimulant high similar to meth or cocaine. The stuff is sold under names like Vanilla Sky or Ivory Wave.

The Drug Enforcement Administration invoked emergency powers in October to make the drug illegal.

Until recently most people who have taken bath salts have either snorted or smoked the drug. But injection gives a quicker, stronger high, so drug abuse experts aren’t surprised to see some people going that route.

This appears to be the first known case of a person contracting a flesh-eating infection from shooting up bath salts.

Infections with flesh-eating bacteria are rare, fortunately. But there’s a risk of infection with any sort of injection, even in a hospital. And as Robert Russo, an orthopedic resident who helped treat the woman, tells Shots: “When you’re out in the street with these drugs the risk is significantly higher.”

Russo had gotten used to treating gunshot wounds in the ER, but was still shaken by this case. “It’s one of those horrible things that starts out as no big deal,” he says. “Then the person ends up losing an extremity.”

Bath salts is a bad drug, Russo adds. This woman’s nightmarish experience “is just one more reason to stay away from it.”

Author: Nancy Shute| Source: npr.org[January 16, 2012]

Who hasn’t dreamt of floating on a cloud? Whether we are looking up at the sky or gazing out of an airplane window, those giant beds of fluff are irresistible.

New York designer Tiago Barros is on the same wavelength and created an incredible, cloud-like balloon that takes travelers for a floating ride around the country. While the project, called Passing Cloud, may be making all our dreams come true, it is also a treat for the environment as it may turn out to be one of the greenest forms of transportation yet.

Passing Cloud is, in fact, not a cloud at all. It is a series of heavy duty balloons held together in the shape of a cloud, reminiscent of the old Zeppelins. The balloons are surrounded by a stainless steel structure covered in tensile nylon fabric. The fabric is incredibly strong and flexible, moving with the wind and capturing the biggest gusts to power movement and protect passengers from blowing away.

Those who are looking to ride the Passing Cloud better not have a schedule in mind. The idea of this mode of transportation is focused on the journey and experience of floating along the sky like a cloud. Passengers board the structure by ladder and simply sit upon the surface for the entirety of the ride. There is no destination, no schedule, no speed to adhere by. The wind determines both where the cloud goes and exactly how fast.

One thing that is for certain, is that the Passing Cloud is incredibly easy on the environment. It emits no exhaust, produces no waste, and uses very little energy to function. By simply floating through the air, the vehicle becomes a part of nature and its courses.

This design is certainly an eye catcher, but it was even more surprising to its initial viewers. Tiago Barros submitted the Passing Cloud plan to the Van Alen Institute and the Department of Cultural Affairs of New York for their international “Life at the Speed of Rail” competition. Expecting to see only designs of high speed rail networks, this floating oasis was a jaw dropper. Though the design did not win the competition, it must have at least been a breath of fresh air.

Author: Molly Cotter| Source: inhabitat [January 12, 2012]

The tiny frog sits easily on a US dime, whose diameter is 18mm

At 7mm (0.27 inches) long, Paedophryne amauensis may be the world’s smallest vertebrate – the group that includes mammals, fish, birds and amphibians.

The researchers also found a slightly larger relative, Paedophryne swiftorum.

Presenting the new species in PLoS One journal, they suggest the frogs’ tiny scale is linked to their habitat, in leaf litter on the forest floor.

Finding the frogs was not an easy assignment.

What are amphibians? * First true amphibians evolved about 250 million years ago * Three orders: frogs (inc. toads), salamanders (inc. newts) and the limbless caecilians * Adapted to many aquatic and terrestrial habitats * Present on every continent except Antarctica * Many metamorphose from larvae to adults

The New Guinea forests are incredibly loud at night; and we were trying to record frog calls in the forest, and we were curious as to what these other sounds were," said research leader Chris Austin from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, US.

"So we triangulated to where these calls were coming from, and looked through the leaf litter.

"It was night, these things are incredibly small; so what we did after several frustrating attempts was to grab a whole handful of leaf litter and throw it inside a clear plastic bag.

"When we did so, we saw these incredibly tiny frogs hopping around," he told BBC News.

Littering the leaves

The Paedophryne genus was identified only recently, and consists of a number of tiny species found at various points in the eastern forests of Papua New Guinea.

The tiny limbs of amauensis (top) and swiftorum are rendered translucent

“They’re occupying the relatively thick leaf litter of tropical forest in low-lying parts of the island, eating incredibly small insects that typically are much smaller than insects that frogs eat,” said Professor Austin.

“And they’re probably prey for a large number of relatively small invertebrates that don’t usually prey on frogs.”

Predators may well include scorpions.

Intriguingly, other places in the world that also feature dense, moist leaf litter tend to possess such small frog species, indicating that amphibians are well placed to occupy this ecological niche.

Before the Paedophrynes were found, the title of “world’s smallest frog” was bestowed on the Brazilian gold frog (Brachycephalus didactylus) and its slightly larger Cuban relative, the Monte Iberia Eleuth (Eleutherodactylus iberia). They both measure less than 1cm long.

The smallest vertebrates have until now been fish.

Adult Paedocypris progenetica, which dwells in Indonesian swamps and streams, measure 7.9-10.3 mm long.

Male anglerfish of the species Photocorynus spiniceps are just over 6mm long. But they spend their lives fused to the much larger (50mm long) females, so whether they should count in this contest would be disputed.

Paedophryne amauensis adults average 7.7mm, which is why its discoverers believe it how holds the crown.

The remote expanses of Papua New Guinea rank alongside those of Madagascar as places where hitherto undiscovered amphibian species are expected to turn up, as they are largely undeveloped and not well explored.

Author:Richard Black| Source: bbc [January 12, 2012]

]]>