hobolinks » Nature

Encyclopedia of Life is a hit (and goes down)

cyberhobo — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:05:53 +0000

The Encyclopedia of Life attempted to go live, and was immediately so popular it went down again. I hope it gets enough support to serve demand – I’m looking forward to seeing it.

Unextinct: New Zealand Storm Petrel

cyberhobo — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 18:13:49 +0000

It’s not known how these birds are surviving, but seven have been captured in the past four years after 150 years of none at all.

Media exaggerations of extinction threats

cyberhobo — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:06:28 +0000

My suspicion that many extinction headlines have been sensationalized is well founded, it appears. The sad part is that if most people pay no attention to the exaggerated headlines, the truth will likely have even less impact.

Record Number of Bears Killed This Year

cyberhobo — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:11:16 +0000

If I haven’t seen any bears this year in Colorado, it may be because they’ve been hanging out in people’s back yards. Fifty-nine have been killed in Colorado so far, up from the 2002 record of 55. Human encroachment is one of the factors that put bears at a higher risk of extinction than other species.

Mysterious Clinging Leaves

cyberhobo — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:42:38 +0000

I’m no botanist, but it does seem like leaves are hanging onto trees longer than usual here in Colorado. I wouldn’t have paid much attention, but Carolyn at Roundtop Ruminations is flipping out about the clinging leaves in Pennsylvania. What does it mean?

Europe finds 57 more freshwater fish species

cyberhobo — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:19:48 +0000

The article doesn’t say it, but I think the vague threat of mass extinctions is increasing the number of species we know about as it spurs on research. It’s an odd contrast – it makes it look like biodiversity is increasing, but that has to happen before we can know for sure that it is decreasing.

Update: It seems the folks at the Extinction Blog were having similar thoughts.

Extinct: the Maderian Large White Butterfly

cyberhobo — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 22:03:37 +0000

An international conference of butterfly experts confirmed this global extinction, and many more within individual countries. It looks like butterflies, along with mountain frogs, may be a warning sign of approaching biodiversity losses.

(Via Extinction Blog)

Undular Bore Waves

cyberhobo — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:53:03 +0000

…look like ocean waves made of clouds. NASA posted some time lapse videos taken recently in Iowa.

11 species discovered in Vietnam

cyberhobo — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:19:34 +0000

Among them a white-lipped snake and a leafless, fungal orchid. Are all orchids fungus? Weird…

Livestock Extinctions

cyberhobo — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 01:55:03 +0000

This must be a sign of our incredible trend toward monocultures in worldwide agriculture – the first global survey of livestock breeds reports that one goes extinct every month. That’s more extinctions by far than I’ve seen reported anywhere else.