A species of skink—the Vosmer’s writhing skink (Lygosoma vosmaerii)—has been rediscovered in India. Apparently, the skink hasn’t been seen since 1839. More via The Hindu:
Zoologists from Osmania University have rediscovered a species belonging to the lizard family, which was last seen way back in 1839 in the then Bengal province. The species, thought to be extinct till now, has been identified as Lygosoma Vosmaerii and is also known as Vosmer’s Writhing Skink. It was found by the research team at Jaggayyapet, Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh.
After 160 years, Thyreophora cynophila, a unique species of fly, which specializes on feeding off carcasses at a particular stage of decomposition, has been rediscovered in Spain. More via the BBC:
Thought to be the first fly driven to extinction by humans, it was also considered one of Europe’s few endemic animals to have disappeared for good.
The bizarre fly was considered ‘mythical’ due to its orange head, its preference for living on dead animal carcasses, and the fact it was rarely sighted even in the 19th Century.
. . .
Changes in livestock management in central Europe, improved carrion disposal following the Industrial Revolution, as well as the eradication of wolves and other big bone-crushing carnivores could have helped eliminate the fly.
Video: Thyreophora cynophila
A flowering plant, Clermontia peleana singuliflora, has been rediscovered on Hawaii after almost 100 years of absence. More via First Post:
flower thought to be extinct for almost 100 years has been rediscovered in Hawaii. The species of lobelia was found growing on native trees and ferns in rainforests covering the slopes of the Kohala volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii.
The flower, known as ‘oha wai’ in Hawaiian, was last seen on the island in 1909 and last collected on the nearby island of East Maui in 1920. It had never been recorded on the slopes of Kohala before.
Conservation worker Jon Griffin explained how researchers made the unexpected discovery. “We were surveying a rare tree snail population when we came across a native lobelia plant that we were unable to identify,” he revealed.
He said they sent photographs of the flower to Dr Thomas Lammers, a botanist at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, who identified it as Clermontia peleana singuliflora, which had not been seen for 90 years and was believed to have died out.
The Sierra Nevada red fox has been rediscovered in the central California. This subspecies of red fox hasn’t been seen since the 1990s. More via National Geographic:
The Sierra Nevada red fox subspecies hadn’t been seen in central California since the 1990s and was considered gone from the area. Only one other population of Sierra Nevada foxes are known, farther north in the Lassen Peak region (see map).
But U.S. Forest Service officials suspected photographs taken by a trail camera near the Sierra Nevada mountains’ Sonora Pass (see map) in August had captured a Sierra Nevada red fox gnawing on a “bait bag” of chicken scraps.
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, ran DNA tests on saliva samples from the bag, and sure enough, the spit confirmed the fox as a Sierra Nevada. Testing saliva is “not uncommon,” said Ben Sacks, director of the Canid Diversity and Conservation Unit of the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory.
“We thought they were gone,” Sacks added. “We were wrong.”
Three species of amphibians—two species of frogs and one species of salamander—have been rediscovered around the world. More via Wildlife Extra:
The three animals that have been rediscovered so far include a Mexican salamander not seen since it was discovered in 1941, a frog from the Ivory Coast not seen since 1967 and another frog from Democratic Republic of Congo not seen since 1979.
Video: Seafood dealer says load of crabs “contaminated with oil”
In addition to claims that their crab catch was contaminated from oil pollution, fishers claim that government scientists failed to collect samples of their catch. More via WALB-TV:
Fishermen in coastal Louisiana say hundreds of crabs caught near Saint Bernard Parish were full of oil, rendering their day’s catch useless. Now they’re calling for testing to see if those crabs were contaminated from BP oil.
Tuesday was supposed to be a very productive day for B&K Crabbing, but when one of the fishermen brought his catch back to the dock, seafood dealer Kevin Heier says he knew something wasn’t right.
“We dumped them in ice water, picked the box up, dumped them on the table, and the smell like to knocked us down,” Heier said. “[We] emptied the box of crabs and the water that was coming off the crabs on the table was just like a sheen.”
Heier believes the crabs were contaminated with oil.
“It’s something I’ve never seen before in my life,” Heier said. “I was in total shock. Mr. Bruce, he’s 70 years old, he’s been doing this for 60 years, something he’s never seen either.”
Dealers Bruce Guerra and Heier immediately realized no one would want to buy their catch. Their next move was trying to contact Wildlife and Fisheries.
“We got a biologist that was supposed to come here, about an hour passed and he never showed up,” Heier said. “So we called the biologist and said ‘What happened?’ and he said ‘My superior stopped me from coming.’”
More than 24 hours later, Heier says the catch can’t be tested because the crabs have all died. Crabbers will have to return and try for another harvest from the same area. Ideally, some of the crabs will live long enough to serve as viable samples.
“We’ve got to get to the bottom line and find out the root cause of this, what’s the problem,” Heier said. “It’s like we can’t get help from nobody.”
Guerra added, “It ain’t over with. Just like BP, Alaska, 17 years this went on. They’re here four and a half months and want to pull out, you know, like nothing’s wrong.”
Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense — I tell you it is an act of patriotism.
— Former President Jimmy Carter
We often think of conservation only in terms of sacrifice. In fact, it is the most painless and immediate way of rebuilding our Nation’s strength. Every gallon of oil each one of us saves is a new form of production. It gives us more freedom, more confidence, that much more control over our own lives.
Formerly, President Jimmy Carter had solar panels placed on the White House roof, but they were removed during the Reagan administration. Via Newsweek:
Jimmy Carter had a thing or two to say about energy. “We can’t go on consuming 40 percent more energy than we produce,” Carter said from the Oval Office in 1979. He warned that America’s energy dependence made us weaker to our enemies and urged Congress to act on clean domestic energy or face a future of rising prices and less international security. To drive home the point, he had a series of solar panels installed on the White House.
Sometime during the next eight years, they came down and never went back up. No one quite remembers why. There’s a rumor that President Reagan had the house repainted and never got around to reinstalling them.
Bill McKibben would like to have solar panels placed back onto the White House roof. Via Scientific American:
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter had 32 panels installed atop the White House to capture the sun’s heat. Thirty-odd years later, at least one of the panels still works, warming up in the Northeastern sunlight of Boston and sending steam heat out of a spigot on September 8, en route down the east coast from its temporary home at Unity College in Maine. By September 10, that panel had made it back to the White House, courtesy of dedicated Unity College students and environmental campaigner Bill McKibben.
However, Bill McKibben’s efforts to bring the solar panels back to the White House roof were recently rejected by White House officials. Via the NYTimes.com:
Mr. McKibben met with three midlevel White House officials Friday morning who told him, politely, no dice.
They explained that there were various reasons that the White House roof was not available for a gesture with very little energy-saving potential and that the Obama administration was doing more to promote renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions than any previous government. The word “stunt” may have come up.
But because the goal of this effort is a high-profile event involving the White House roof itself, it’s destined to run up against an immovable hurdle: a combination of the incredibly intertwined bureaucracy involved in doing anything to the White House and the authority of the Secret Service over anything that happens on that fabled roof. If you think congressional gridlock is bad, consider a bureaucracy that ranges from the Office of the White House Chief Usher to the National Park Service and Secret Service.
The security issues involving the roof, particularly in the wake of the September 11th attacks, dominate. To get some input on such issues, I spoke with Steve Strong on Wednesday. He’s a solar pioneer who attended the installation of the panels in 1979 and whose company installed photovoltaic and hot water panels on other buildings in the White House complex in 2002. That project had its roots in the Clinton administration but was completed during the Bush administration “under the radar,” labeled by the supervising National Park Service team as a “maintenance operation,” Strong said. Strong said that there was never a question of doing something on the roof of the White House proper, given the anti-aircraft missiles and “spook stuff” there and the veto power of the Secret Service.
Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this Nation, and it can also be the standard around which we rally. On the battlefield of energy we can win for our Nation a new confidence, and we can seize control again of our common destiny.
In little more than two decades we’ve gone from a position of energy independence to one in which almost half the oil we use comes from foreign countries, at prices that are going through the roof. Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous tool on our economy and our people. This is the direct cause of the long lines which have made millions of you spend aggravating hours waiting for gasoline. It’s a cause of the increased inflation and unemployment that we now face. This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our Nation.
The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our Nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.
What I have to say to you now about energy is simple and vitally important.
Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this Nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 — never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980′s, for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade — a saving of over 4 1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day.
Point two: To ensure that we meet these targets, I will use my Presidential authority to set import quotas. I’m announcing tonight that for 1979 and 1980, I will forbid the entry into this country of one drop of foreign oil more than these goals allow. These quotas will ensure a reduction in imports even below the ambitious levels we set at the recent Tokyo summit.
Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our Nation’s history to develop America’s own alternative sources of fuel — from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the Sun.
I propose the creation of an energy security corporation to lead this effort to replace 2 1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day by 1990. The corporation will issue up to $5 billion in energy bonds, and I especially want them to be in small denominations so that average Americans can invest directly in America’s energy security.
Just as a similar synthetic rubber corporation helped us win World War II, so will we mobilize American determination and ability to win the energy war. Moreover, I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this Nation’s first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.
These efforts will cost money, a lot of money, and that is why Congress must enact the windfall profits tax without delay. It will be money well spent. Unlike the billions of dollars that we ship to foreign countries to pay for foreign oil, these funds will be paid by Americans to Americans. These funds will go to fight, not to increase, inflation and unemployment.
Point four: I’m asking Congress to mandate, to require as a matter of law, that our Nation’s utility companies cut their massive use of oil by 50 percent within the next decade and switch to other fuels, especially coal, our most abundant energy source.
Point five: To make absolutely certain that nothing stands in the way of achieving these goals, I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board which, like the War Production Board in World War II, will have the responsibility and authority to cut through the redtape, the delays, and the endless roadblocks to completing key energy projects.
We will protect our environment. But when this Nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.
Point six: I’m proposing a bold conservation program to involve every State, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle. This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and your lives at a cost you can afford.
Video: Former President Jimmy Carter addresses the United States’ energy shortage by discussing how humanity is becoming more materialistic, more self-Indulgent, and too consumptive. He characterizes this shift as a “crisis of the American spirit“:
Video: Solar road tripper Jamie Nemecek of Unity College tells us why she thinks solar on the White House roof is a good idea:
