BIG WHALE COLONY FOUND IN SRI-LANKA

There was a time when the big whales were hunted almost to extinction. In 1966, this was changed, when the protective laws were enacted to blues, the largest animal of the planet. Now there is a new development and it is good one- A huge Blue Whales colony has been discovered in Sri Lanka.  Last year Amos Nachoum scouted Sri Lanka for the fifth time in order to set up diving and photography operation- His first exploration in Sri Lanka was in 1982. According to his description he was amazed what he saw. He has been waiting all the time for the moment.

HAPPY TO BE NAKED AT 34

                       The new survey reveals that 34 is the magical age when 40% of women admitted that they take a good look at their naked bodies passionately, everyday.
                        When the respondents were asked about their favorite part of the bodies, 30 per cent of the women said they were proud of their breast while 22 per cent of the women were proud of their legs. However, 50 per cent of the ladies wanted a flatter tummy..

NINE BLACKBUCKS FOUND DEAD IN LUCKNOW ZOO

         Since September 7, nine blackbucks have died in Lucknow zoo. The post mortem report says that acute broncho pneumonia is the causse of the death. The zoo authority is checking that whether the other blackbucks are also affected or not.
         

RHINO SHOT DEAD BY FOREST GUARDS- IN ASSAM

              An adult rhino was allegedly shot dead by the forest guards at Barbheti village in Assam's Sonitupr district on this Sunday. Five days ago this rhino strayed into the village. The Forest guards were trying to guide the straying rhino to the Kaziranga National Park. Around 8:30 am the rhino attacked five forest guards. Those guards have nothing to do at last and they shot the creature. The rhino received five bullet injury and died on the spot.

RARE FOSSIL APE DISCOVERED IN CHINA

                A team of researcher has discovered the cranium of a fossil ape from shuitangba, a Miocene site in Yunnan province, China.
               According to a team member Nina Jablonski, juvenile crania of apes and hominins are extremely rare in the fossil record, especially those of infants and young juveniles. This cranium is only the second relatively complete cranium of a young juvenile in the entire Miocene- 23-25 million years ago- record of the fossil apes throughout the old world, and both were discovered from the late Miocene of Yunnan Province.
               The cranium is also noteworthy for its age. it's just over 6 million years old, dates to near the end of the Miocene, a time when apes had become extinct in the most of the Eurasia. 

SELLING WHITE RHINOS TO SAVE THEM- IS THAT A SOLUTION?

                   In effort to curb rhino poaching, the South African Govt. is taking a different approach- selling them. Within the last two years the Kruger National Park (KNP) has sold 170 white rhinos to private ranches. This is necessary to improve the conservation of status of white rhinos in the country by establishing rhino populations on the private ranches.
                   KNP has been a target of rhino poaching because of its long international boundaries. It has lost 381 rhinos, the official statistics reveal. Selling the rhinos also generate the income of the KNP. Though no black rhinos have been sold as reported. black rhinos are critically endangered species, of which fewer than 5000 remains in the wild, worldwide.

                    South Africa is the home of rhinos since the beginning. 70% of the rhino population lives here. But illegal poaching stoked by growing demand for the rhino horns has diminished the rhino population in South Africa.
                    But selling the rhinos is a alternative solution, if KNP can not find a good way to stop this poaching then the day is not far when all the rhinos are either sold or killed by the poachers.

LAND VANISHES IN EAST SUNDARBANS

           The upper Bidya and Raimangal regions in the Sunderbans, key human and wildlife habitat in the eastern  parts of the mangroves, are under severe threat of inundation due to the sea-level rise.

           A recent study by the World Bank and the Institute of Environmental Studies and Wetland Management (IESWM) has suggested to de-populate parts of some islands along the fringe areas on this parts so that the existing embankments can be moved back to allow a wider tidal channel to develop. This will, in turn, lead to deposition of sediments which can raise the land faster than the sea level rise.

            The study has also alerted  if the sedimentation can’t keep pace with the sea level rise- believed to happening at 3 millimetres annually- the Sunderbans may see a huge loss of mangroves which will put the survival of the endangered Royal Bengal tiger at risk. A recent camera trap report has captured presence of at least 55 tigers on this part of the mangroves.

            Agreeing to the report WWF-INDIA’s Sunderbans chapter head Anurag Danda said there is a need to De-populate some islands, as once these erode the man groves will get new sediments which will help it flourish in the future.

            But for now, the fate of 3.5 million people living within 20 km of the mangroves’ northern and eastern boundaries and more than 50 tigers believed to be ruling the forests of its eastern region hang in the balance.

             However, the IESWM senior scientist Somenath Bhattacharyya is of firm opinion that with proper modelling a d consequent management, it is possible to save the Sunderbans even with 1 metre sea level rise.

              The West Bengal Govt. has to handle this matter very sincerely as this is very important issue of the ecosystem. It’s already proved that the Sunderbans is the only habitat where the tigers have maintained their own regions. Why this endangered species do not have the attention of the WB Govt. is a very interesting question. May be they have no voting power, that is why they are neglected so far.

NEW MOON OF NEPTUNE

                        Nasa scientists have discovered a new moon orbiting planet Neptune using the Hubble space telescope. This new moon is estimated to be more than  12 miles across, makes it the smallest known moon in the Neptunian system, which already had 13 known moons.

KING OF PREDATOR OF ALL TIME

                                   Scientists have discovered a fossilized tooth belonging to the vicious Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur, which they claim provides solid evidence that the creature was indeed a predator, hunter and killer, and not a scavenger as some paleontologist suggested previously. Tyrannosaurus Rex has long been popular as the most notorious, vicious killing creature to roam the planet during the age of the dinosaurs.

                                   For more than a century some paleontologists

have argued that Tyrannosaurus Rex was a scavenger, not a predator. From this new study it is almost sure that the previous theory was not true and the Tyrannosaurus Rex were the King of the predators of all era. 

ARCTIC AFTER 2058

                               Arctic may become ice free for several months of the year, starting sometime during the years 2054 to 2058, a combined team of researchers from the US and China has predicted. Using a climate simulation tool, scientists have projected that the Arctic will become September ice free after the next 40 years, ice-free in this context refers to a time period during any year, more specifically, during the September after withstanding the heat of summer, researchers said.

                           A warmer planet would mean warmer temperatures in the Arctic- enough warming and Arctic would eventually become ice-free during part of the year, the most alarming is that, when all the ice melted, the sea level will risen very high, so many parts of the lands will gone beneath the sea.

ASTRONAUT DRIVES ROBOT ON EARTH, AT FIRST

                                           NASA transformed the international space station into a command center for a robot on the earth this month for a first of its kind test drive of the technology and skills needed to remotely operate the robot on the moon, mars or and asteroid.

                                          During the June 17 space technology test, NASA astronaut  Chris Cassidy, a space station flight engineer, remotely controlled a K10 rover at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett field, Calif. The robot was commanded to simulate deploying a polyimide-film antenna in a specially built "Roverscape" at the NASA center.
                                         On the space station, Cassidy received telemetry and real time video from the rover and monitored the robot's reaction to his commands via virtual terrain display.

TORTOISES ARE GOING TO WALK FASTER???????

                                                  Though it looks to be impossible, but it's true- tortoises are going to walk fast in the Twycross zoo.
                                                  This zoo is training its giant tortoises to walk faster. Staff members at  the Twycross, are feeding treats to Speedy(70), Tom(40), Shelly(30) so that they can exceed their speed of less than one mile per hour as they cross a new larger pen, the daily express reported. " we use a target and the tortoises' favorite foods. We hold the target a few centimeters in front of them and when they touch it with their nose we say 'good' and feed them. we the move the target further away and repeat the process," Kris Hern- a zookeeper, said this.
                                                If this examination is successful then it is a big proof of the Darwin's  struggle for existence and the theory of his evolution.

BUMPY-FACED REPTILE RULED THE WORLD BEFORE THE DINOSAURS

                                                     During the Permian era, there was only one super-continent called Pangea existed on the earth. Animal and plant life dispersed broadly across this land. Now by a new theory published in the Journal of vertebrate paleontology supports the idea that there was an isolated desert in the middle off the Pangea with its own fauna. Roaming in this desert in what is now northern Niger was a very distinctive creature known as Pareiasaur. They were very large herbivorous reptile and they were very common in that desert  during the middle and late Permian era [about 266-252 million years ago.]
                                                 The main author of this theory, Linda Tsuji said, "Imagine a cow-sized plant-eating reptile with a knobby skull and bony armor down its back."

                                                 Newly discovered fossils belong to the aptly genus Bunostegos which means knobby[skull] roof. Fleshing out of the details, the archaeologist have candidly explain that the face of the Pareiasaur appears as if it has been made by a kindergarten, who went wild when he was using the brush. Most of the Pareiasaurs had a bony knobs on their skulls but Bunostegos spotted the largest, most bulbous one's ever discovered. In life, these were probably skin-covered horns like those on the heads of the modern giraffes. Although at the first blush these features seem to suggest that Bunostegos was an evolutionary advance Pareiasaur, it also had many primitive characteristic. Tsuji's analysis showed that Bunostegos was actually more closely related to older and more primitive Pareiasaurs which leads us to to conclusions: 

1. its knobby noggin was the result of convergent evolution 
2. that is genealogical lineage had been isolated for millions of years 

                                         The archaeologists had explained that Bunostegos were not live alone in the desert, some fossils of another creature creatures were found there, named Gorgonopsian- a mammal like carnivore. 

                                          Some scientist believed that the modern day turtles are the direct descendants of Pareiasaurs. During the phase of this discovery, the knob lizard was studied and was found to be a primitive lizard. It had separated from the original ones millions of years ago. It was obliterated from the surface of the earth, roughly 248 million years ago.

PLANETS WITH TWO SUNS MAY INCREASE THE CHANCE TO HAVE LIFE

                                  Planets with two suns should be more capable of supporting life than other planets. These type of having dual suns might actually help prevent the damaging solar winds from bombarding planets in their system. Joni Clark, a undergraduate student at new mexico state university said, " It's like a really good marriage. they vent to each other, and they're not focused on anything else. They slow each other down and that causes increased magnetic  protection of the planets."
                                 When the stars in a binary are somewhat evenly matched in mass, the can enter into a synchronized dance that keeps solar winds to a minimum. The stars also need to fully orbit one another within 10 to 30 days to expand the habitable zone. If they drift too far apart, it could put a significant gravitational strain on the orbiting planets.
                                 The magnetic fields of the planets aren't necessarily boosted in these kinds of binary system, Clark said, but they don't have to deal with as much solar wind assault. Waterly worlds and rocky planets could form in areas of the system that might not be habitable without the double star interaction, he added.

                                  Clark said, " It also leaves the potential open for smaller planets that have less magnetic field protection to remain habitable as they don't have to protect themselves from as much as they would in a single star case." he found that p- type planets received 0.7 % less flux from solar wind than earth depending on their position in the solar system. Potentially, p-type binaries could have more potential for habitability." In these system, it's also possible that habitable alien planets could exist as close-in to their stars as Venus is to the sun.

CAVE BEAR

SCIENTIFIC CLASSIFICATION 

Skeleton of the cave bear

• KINGDOM : Animalia

• PHYLUM : Chordata 

• CLASS : Mammalia

• ORDER : Carnivora

• FAMILY : Ursidae

• GENUS : Ursus

• SPECIES : Ursus Spelaeus  

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 

• SIZE :  About 7 ft to 10 feet long.

• WEIGHT : 500 - 1000 pounds

• LIFE SPAN : 15 -20 Years

• HABITAT: Mountains  and woodlands of the Europe

• HISTORICAL EPOCH : Middle to late Pleistocene age

INTRODUCTION:  

                              Cave bear was a species of bear that come in the earth at the middle Pleistocene age, around 1,000,000 years ago, and extinct from the world at the late p]Pleistocene age, around 20,000 years ago.From the study, it is proved that this bears spend much more time in the cave than the brown bears, that is why the scientists name them cave bear.

DESCRIPTION: 

                             Cave bears had a large head with a massive canine teeth. From the cave painting it seems that they had a short ears and a pig-like face, which makes them look like the modern teddy bears. Its front legs were massive, with huge paws and claws- like today's grizzly. males are almost 900- 1100 pounds heavy, where the females are almost 500- 600 pounds heavy- that shows, the males are twice bigger than the females. from the study, its looks like they grew larger in the glaciation periods than the inter-glaciation period.

HABITAT AND RANGE :

Fossil structure of the cave bear

                            Cave bears' range stretched across Europe, from Spain to great Britain in west, Italy, Poland, parts of Germany, the Balkans, Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, Hungary, Romania and parts of Russia, including the Caucasus, and northern Iran; though no evidence were found for what we can say that the they lived in Scotland, Scandinavian or the Baltic countries, which were completely covered in extensive glacial at the time. The cave bear inhabited low mountain areas, they seems to avoid the open plains. They preferred the forest areas.

DIET :

                            From the study, it looks like they cave bears are very much herbivorous, even more than the brown bears.it dug up the roots, ate berries, etc. It may have dug up burrowing animals such as marmots. it is suggested that the cave bears may be specialized on digging up root-beds in deep glacial silt.

REPRODUCTION :

                            It is expected that cave bears had similar breeding habits to the brown bears.

THREATS :

1. Saber-tooth and other carnivores used to hunt cave bears for their foods, 
2. Many fossils were found which indicates that many sub-adult cave bears often failed to get through the hibernation. It's probably because the adults excluded them from the best feeding areas and so they failed to put on enough fat to survive winter. 
3. Human also hunt the cave bears not only for food, they hunt them for the hunting ritual or they kept the skull as the winning trophies. they also killed them for their habitat, as they can take shelter in the caves of the cave bears.

EVOLUTION :

                          It is thought that the cave bears were came from the Plio-Pleistocene Etruscan bears(Ursus Etruscus) who lived in the earth from, 5.3 million years ago to 10,000 years ago. The immediate precursor of cave bears were most probably Ursus Deningeri.

EXTINCTION : 

Human hunting cave bear

                          The extinction of the cave bears were very controversial, and very mysterious, it is not happened for a single factor, a complex set factor happened, for the studies of different scientist, we can conclude, the main causes are these-

1. Human hunts too much cave bears that leads them to their extinction.
2. Climate change is also a heavy factor, at the time of the beginning of the ice age cave bears might not adopted that climate change. and gone extinct. 
3. At the beginning of the ice age there was a huge food crisis, that leads the cave bears in starvation and also the predators killed too much cave bears for food.
4. Some scientist thought that at the time of the beginning of the ice age, cave bears were attacked by some virus and bacteria, that caused their extinction.  

                       Though my personal view is the cave bears not gone extinct, at the beginning of the ice age or before the beginning of the ice age, a group of these cave bears started to migrate to the north, and evolved into polar bears, read my this article THE EVOLUTION OF POLAR BEAR

REFERENCE :

1.  FATE OF THE CAVE BEAR by Andrew curry
2. CAVE BEAR by Bob Strauss
3. Huge Cave Bears: When and Why They Disappeared from livescience staff
4. cave bear Wikipedia
5. cave bear  BBC science

TINIEST GALAXY FOUND

                              Recently the astronomers finds a new galaxy. It is known that the galaxy contains almost a collection of 1000 stars, these are held together with a bit of dark matter, orbiting the milky way. It is the most lightweight galaxy ever discovered. The scientist are using the world's most powerful telescope at the W M Keck observatory. The astronomers named the galaxy segue 2.The co-author James bullock said, " Finding a galaxy as tine as segue 2 is like discovering an elephant smaller than a mouse. Segue 2's presence could hint at the existence of thousands more very low mass systems."
                              astronomers are searching these types of galaxies for a long time. these time of galaxies helps us to know what is our future or what is our history. this type of galaxies, either the stage of the ruined galaxy or the beginning of the new one.

SAVE POLAR BEAR PROJECT

                                  We know there are around 25,000 polar bears alive in the world and if we try our best, then we can only save them till the existence ice on the Arctic. As we all know that the genetic changes in the polar bears are mainly because of the very cold temperature in the Arctic region. so as long the ice are there, polar bears can exist.

                                  But now a days scientists think that the excessive hunting of the polar bears and for the increase of the human habitat, these bears lost their own privacy and habitat. Which can be a very important cause of the extinction of the polar bears in the near future(long before the melting of the ice in the Arctic region). So the scientists are taking may new theories and concepts to stop this.

                                Here I'm giving my own concept/ theory to save those polar bears.

                                Polar bears are found in these regions-  Arctic region, Greenland, Russia, Canada, Alaska, Svalbard.

                               To make an theory about the conservation of the polar bears, we have to figure out the factors related to the polar bears. the factors are-

             1. The environmental changes- As the time goes the thickness of the ice layers are getting less to lesser.

             2. Hunting- People hunt them to reduce the unwanted attacks from them, and also for the oil and the skin.

            3. Food crisis- People not only kill the polar bears but also kill other small/large animals for there needs. this makes a huge impact on the Arctic life food chain. and since polar bears are in the top of this chain, so it effects them the most.

   

       MY PROJECT - 

REQUIRED AREA AND PRIMARY NEEDS FOR THAT AREA-

mother bear playing with it's cub

                    We have to choose a quite big place, about 1000 sq km. Obviously it'll be a polar area, and must have the same climate just like where they used to live. it helps them to live freely. Now we have to make sure that the place is completely secure from the poachers and the common people. Now we need to arrange the preys for them,  seal is the primary diet for the polar bears. so it's necessary that the chosen place must be a place where seals used to come. and also we can try for many kind of fishes. now we fit 24 hours running automatic cameras. so we can watch the family's every move.

WORK-

               Here the real work comes. we have to collect a polar bear family consisting of the mother and her children. then we examine them, to see if they are all healthy enough to adopt. Now if they are enough healthy, then we take them, otherwise we collect another family. Now the chosen family will be shifted to our chosen area. now we will watch them every hour and see if they have facing any problem. Here not only we can just watch them and give safety to them, but also we can do some research work about them, work like, we can observe them every single minutes to know more about them and find the difference and the common factors between them and the other bears. this might help us to know about the evolution of the polar bear which is still a mystery. Now we observed that family till the cubs are ready to leave the family, when  those cubs leave the family, we take them and send them to there real place. 

polar bear family

WHAT HELP WE GET FROM THIS- 

• we can do more research works about the polar bears.
• we can observed more clearly that how the polar bears teach their cubs.
• we can ensure increase of two or three or four new adult polar bears in the planet.
• we can control and able to stop the poachers from poaching.
• after doing this for the 1st time, we can continue this process and that time we may do it in a large scale. this surely helps us to increase the number of polar bears.

    If you like my concept or have any problem or new thought, please share.

WHITE TIGER MYSTERY SOLVED BY SCIENTISTS

           The milky coats of the white Bengal tigers are caused by a single change in a know pigment gene, a new study has found. for long time the cause of this coats of the white tigers are mystery. now, scientists have discovered that their spectacular white coats are produced by a single change in a known pigment gene. " The white tiger represents part of the natural genetic diversity of the tiger that is worth conserving." said Shu-Jin Luo of the China's Peking University.

MYSTERIOUS COSMIC IMPACT CAUSES THE EXTINCTION OF THE WOOLLY MAMMOTHS??

                                           Woolly mammoths may have died as a result of the climate change following a major cosmic impact near the end of the Ice Age. A catastrophic event in Earth's history around 12,800 years ago, scorched the air, melted bedrock and altered the course of the Earth's history, researchers said. However, exactly what happened then, still unclear. Researchers say a comet may have scraped our planet's atmosphere or a meteorite may have slammed into the Earth's surface, causing global combustion. The researchers have found ample evidence to support their theory.
                                          

EARTH LIKE PLANETS IN THE ATMOSPHERES OF DEAD STARS SPOTTED

EARTH LIKE PLANETS IN THE ATMOSPHERES OF DEAD STARS SPOTTED

            The Hubble space telescope has found the signs of Earth-like planets in a very unlikely place- the atmospheres of a pair of burnt-out stars in a nearby cluster. The researchers said that, the white dwarf stars are being polluted by debris from asteroid-like objects falling on them. The stars, known as white dwarfs- small, dim remnants of stars once like the sun- reside 150 light years away in the Hyades star cluster, in the constellation of Taurus. The cluster is relatively very young, at only 625 myo. Astronomers believe that all stars formed in clusters.

                                                                                                        

                                                                                         SOURCE- THE TIMES OF INDIA