There are still things out there to discover. It makes you wonder, what else is out there?

— John Maerz

More about this discovery can be found at National Geographic and the University of Georgia Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.

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From the New York Times:

Mr. Pickens’s situation is of particular interest because he has spent much of the last year advocating an energy plan that includes increasing to 20 percent the amount of the nation’s electricity that is supplied by wind power. In his vision, that would free up natural gas now used to generate power so that it could be used in cars, reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. (Currently, wind accounts for just 1 percent of U.S. electricity.)

For the huge wind farm he had planned in Texas, Mr. Pickens had already ordered 687 large wind turbines from General Electric, to be delivered starting in 2011. But transmission lines being built by the state were unlikely to reach the location he has leased until 2013, so he needed to put the turbines elsewhere. Mr. Pickens had once planned to build his own transmission lines, but difficulty in finding financing amid the credit crisis forced him to shelve that plan.

Possible locations for the 687 turbines include Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and Alberta, Canada, Mr. Pickens said. Collectively, at a capacity of 1,000 megawatts — about the size of a nuclear plant — his project would still amount to a substantial investment in wind power. He had planned his Panhandle wind farm at 4,000 megawatts.

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More images of different animal species making use of various types of prostheses can be found at National Geographic.

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In the image below, Greenpeace sends President Barack Obama a strong message—the United States must develop an effective policy and regulations that tackle global climate change—so no more politics as usual as Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would say. From the Christian Science Monitor:

Greenpeace activists scaled Mt. Rushmore today to issue a challenge to President Obama. “”Our brave climbers rappelled down the face of Mt. Rushmore today to issue a challenge to President Obama: If he wants to get his face on this monument, he needs to be a true leader on global warming, not a politician,” said one Greenpeace member.

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Sarah Palin is certainly an opportunistic politician. In her bizarre (and unsurprisingly incoherent) resignation speech, she gave this excuse for resigning as Governor of Alaska: “But I have given my reasons… no more ‘politics as usual’ and I am taking my fight for what’s right – for Alaska – in a new direction.” Certainly, she oozes the politics as usual that she claims to abhor.

Furthermore, her petulance towards the media is as obvious as her self-victimization or her self-deception. As a result, I believe most folks are tired of Sarah Palin.

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a report on “Trends in Duck Breeding Populations, 1955-2009.” According to the report, “the total duck population,” excluding scoters, eiders, long-tailed ducks, mergansers, and wood ducks, shows an estimated “13% increase over last year’s estimate of 37.3± 0.6 million birds and was 25% above the long-term average.” Even the number of Canvasbacks are up. The report can be found here. More from The Chattanoogan:

In addition to extensive grassland cover, one of the most important elements in duck breeding success is the amount of water present in portions of prairie and parkland Canada and north-central United States. Total pond counts for the United States and Canada combined showed 6.4 million ponds, a 45 percent increase from last year’s estimate, and 31 percent above the long-term average. Habitat conditions in 2009 were mostly a good news scenario. Conditions across the southern portions of the Canadian and U.S prairies improved considerably from 2008.

However, drought remained in some parts of the traditional survey area, including western portions of the Prairie Pothole Region. Southern Alberta saw a decrease in ponds of 19 percent. This area contrasted sharply with record amounts of snow and rainfall in the Dakotas. The north-central U.S., which includes the Dakotas, saw a 108 percent increase in total ponds. Above average snowfall this winter and considerable precipitation in late spring recharged wetlands across the Dakotas and eastern Montana.

The Canadian parklands received below-normal precipitation, but waterfowl habitat in this area continued to benefit from above-normal precipitation received in 2007. In the Boreal Forest, spring break-up was delayed as much as three weeks and most large lakes across the region remained frozen in early June. Overall habitat conditions in this important region were considered good.

The FWS spring surveys provide the scientific basis for many management programs across the continent including the setting of hunting regulations. The four Flyway Councils will meet in late July to recommend and adopt the season structure and bag limits for 2009-10. Individual states will make their specific selections within a federal framework of season length, bag limit, and outside dates. Hunters should check their state’s rules for final dates.

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Photo source for attribution. The author or licensor of this image does not endorse my work or me and their image is protected under an attribution license.

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If you’re interested in following the unemployment rate for a particular country, state, or the entire United States, then the search “unemployment rate” in Google yields a useful interactive graph. You can either click on the image or search “unemployment rate” in Google to view current and historical data on unemployment from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Furthermore, searching “population trends” yields public data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

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Dina Goldstein, a Vancouver photographer, has a very interesting series called “Fallen Princesses.” Her work “takes on the subject of the fairytale juxtaposed into modern reality of adult life.” According to the artist, “In all of the images the Princess is placed in an environment that articulates her conflict. The ‘…happily ever after’ is replaced with a realistic outcome and addresses current issues.”

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To test the theory of whether “after several generations, [Burmese pythons] could eventually migrate to and flourish in as much as a third of the continental United States,” the Savannah River Ecology Lab in South Carolina is conducting a study to determine whether Burmese pythons (Python molurus bivittatus) can survive further north.

Currently, these massive constrictors have established a breeding population within the Florida Everglades—which is expected to spread northwards—and this invasion has been blamed on the pet trade. Burmese pythons grow very large, so their prey can be large, but younger snakes feed on smaller animals. As a result, the impact on Florida’s ecosystems is systemic.

At the moment, a bill is in the works to control destructive non-native species kept as pets. Recently, “a Florida toddler was strangled on Wednesday by a 12-foot (3.6-meter) albino Burmese python that escaped from a holding tank in the girl’s home.” From the Richmond Times Dispatch:

Water managers dispatched two experts to Washington recently to back a bill targeting an Everglades problem that seems to get bigger every year. The latest, largest evidence emerged in mid-May: a Burmese python stretching 16½ feet.

It is the longest yet of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the exotic constrictors the South Florida Water Management District has pulled off its lands and levees in the past few years. More sobering: The female was pregnant, carrying a clutch of 59 eggs — more proof the giant snakes are breeding in the wild.

“These are not little snakes running around. These are massive, dangerous animals,” said district spokesman Randy Smith.

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But at its first hearing in April, the bill ran into what a co-sponsor quipped was a “hornet’s nest of opposition” from pet owners, breeders, hobbyists and pet stores. They expressed outrage to lawmakers in telephone calls, e-mails and YouTube videos — including one titled “Pets in Peril, Politicians Gone Wild” — arguing that the legislation would bar the ownership of anything more exotic than a Doberman or a Siamese cat.

“One-third of our nation has non-native species as pets, and apart from dogs, cats and goldfish, which are exempt [in the bill], virtually every species in those homes falls under” the legislation, said Marshall Meyers, CEO of the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council. The bill “could shut down major segments of the pet industry virtually overnight.”

Proponents, including a coalition of 15 major environmental organizations such as the National Audubon Society and the National Wildlife Federation, call the fears unjustified. They say the bill targets only species that pose a threat.

Still, some suggest the language in the bill is vague.

“There were some legitimate concerns, no one doubts that,” said Peter Jenkins, director of international conservation at Defenders of Wildlife. He notes that pet owners were alarmed when some animals — ferrets, gerbils, guinea pigs and others — weren’t named as species that would be exempt from the bill.

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Biologists argue that more than 400 of the 1,300 species on the endangered-species list are at risk primarily because they compete with — or are targets of — invasive species.

As one of the largest snakes in the world, sometimes topping 20 feet, pythons potentially could challenge the natural dominant predators of the Everglades or other wild places — a concern illustrated in 2005 by the now-famous photos of a 13-foot python that exploded after swallowing a 6-foot alligator.

Water district spokesman Smith said the impact is obvious along the L-67 levee.

“You won’t find a rabbit down there anymore,” he said. “That’s the most noticeable effect. It [the snake] doesn’t seem to have any predators, and it preys on native wildlife.”

Image Found Here

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The video above shows some alien-like gelatinous blobs living in a sewer pipe. A sewer camera, inspecting pipes below Raleigh’s Cameron Village, took some video of what appears to be some type of blob pulsating into or sucking material from the pipe. However, the blob is nothing more than tubifex worms reacting to the camera’s light. Nonetheless, the video is still gross and fascinating. From News14.com:

Ed Buchan, environmental coordinator at the Raleigh Public Utilities Department, said staff biologists have confirmed that the “creature” is actually a colony of tubifex worms. The colonies attach themselves to roots that gradually work themselves into weak points in the pipes.
“They seem to respond to the light from the camera,” Buchan said. “That light is pretty hot.”

The worms naturally occur in sewage and pond sediment and are actually sold both live and dried as fish food in pet stores.

He said other staff members in the department have seen it before, although sightings aren’t particularly common.

“I’ve seen a lot of sewer TV before and I’ve never seen them,” he said. “We were surprised. We didn’t know immediately what it was.”

Buchan said the video appears to be legitimate, apparently taken when the owner of the sewer lines, York Properties, contracted a private company to inspect the pipes.

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