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Foal by Foal, the Wildest of Horses Is Coming Back
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, The New York Times, October 11, 2005
Przewalski's horse, the only species of wild horse, grazed in a mountain grassland in Mongolia's Hustai National Park in August.
HUSTAI NATIONAL PARK, Mongolia - Driving along a fold in the mountainous grassland here, a party led by a wildlife conservation specialist caught sight of the horses. A stallion and four mares grazed a higher slope: a rare sight but not as rare as it would have been a decade ago, when wild horses started making a comeback in the wild.
The visitors stopped the truck and climbed one hill after another, tracking the wild horses. The party had come for a close look at what international experts say is an encouraging experiment in wildlife management - the return of the natives, once abundant, that had become extinct in the wild more than 40 years ago.
Mongolia is a land of the horse. The warriors of Genghis Khan and his successors in the 13th century conquered most of Asia on the backs of sturdy horses.
Today, nomads still mind their flocks from the saddle, and they never look more at home than in a race across the empty distances of the Gobi Desert, a study in fluid motion and the centaurian harmony of man and horse as one.
But even the Mongols never managed to domesticate the wildest of horses, a species known as Equus ferus przewalskii, or P-horse for short. It is one of just two extant species of horse. All the breeds of the familiar domestic horse, from Shetland pony to Clydesdale, belong to the other species, which submitted to the bit and bridle 6,000 years ago. Przewalski's horse (pronounced zheh-VAHL-skee and named for the 19th-century Russian explorer who first identified it) is about the size of a large pony, with a stocky body in shades of tan to tawny, short brown legs and a dark mane that stands straight up.
( Read More )
As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS, STEVEN LEE MYERS, ANDREW C. REVKIN and SIMON ROMERO, The New York Times, October 10, 2005
CHURCHILL, Manitoba - It seems harsh to say that bad news for polar bears is good for Pat Broe. Mr. Broe, a Denver entrepreneur, is no more to blame than anyone else for a meltdown at the top of the world that threatens Arctic mammals and ancient traditions and lends credibility to dark visions of global warming.
Still, the newest study of the Arctic ice cap - finding that it faded this summer to its smallest size ever recorded - is beginning to make Mr. Broe look like a visionary for buying this derelict Hudson Bay port from the Canadian government in 1997. Especially at the price he paid: about $7.
By Mr. Broe's calculations, Churchill could bring in as much as $100 million a year as a port on Arctic shipping lanes shorter by thousands of miles than routes to the south, and traffic would only increase as the retreat of ice in the region clears the way for a longer shipping season.
With major companies and nations large and small adopting similar logic, the Arctic is undergoing nothing less than a great rush for virgin territory and natural resources worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Even before the polar ice began shrinking more each summer, countries were pushing into the frigid Barents Sea, lured by undersea oil and gas fields and emboldened by advances in technology. But now, as thinning ice stands to simplify construction of drilling rigs, exploration is likely to move even farther north.
( Read More )
DNA Studies Suggest Emperor Is Most Ancient of Penguins
By CARL ZIMMER, The New York Times, October 11, 2005
Penguins seem to have originated in Antarctica when it was temperate and forested. Emperor penguins, above, adapted to the cold as the climate changed.
Penguins are some of the most improbable animals on the planet. They have wings and feathers but cannot fly. They are not fish, but they have been recorded as deep as 1,755 feet underwater. And the most improbable is the emperor penguin, which waddles across 70 miles of Antarctic ice to reach its breeding grounds. New research on penguin DNA suggests that the emperor also has the most ancient lineage of living penguins.
Scientists have long recognized a link from penguins to petrels and albatrosses. While albatrosses have more conventional bird bodies, they share subtle traits with penguins, like the arrangement of beak bones. They are generally considered the closest living relatives of penguins.
Penguins' ancestors probably began their evolutionary march while Tyrannosaurus rex walked the earth. In a paper to be published in The Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Canadian scientists investigated the origin of penguins by studying their genes. They analyzed segments from three genes, comparing their sequence in all 18 species of penguins and in other birds.
( Read More )
Practices: No Shots, No Service? A Pediatrician's Quandary
By ERIC NAGOURNEY, The New York Times, October 11, 2005
More than a third of pediatricians surveyed say doctors are within their rights to refuse to see families if the parents refuse to have their children vaccinated.
The survey findings, published in the current Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, come at a time when a growing number of parents, skeptical of the benefits of vaccines and concerned about their safety, are saying no.
( Read More )
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, The New York Times, October 11, 2005
Przewalski's horse, the only species of wild horse, grazed in a mountain grassland in Mongolia's Hustai National Park in August.
HUSTAI NATIONAL PARK, Mongolia - Driving along a fold in the mountainous grassland here, a party led by a wildlife conservation specialist caught sight of the horses. A stallion and four mares grazed a higher slope: a rare sight but not as rare as it would have been a decade ago, when wild horses started making a comeback in the wild.
The visitors stopped the truck and climbed one hill after another, tracking the wild horses. The party had come for a close look at what international experts say is an encouraging experiment in wildlife management - the return of the natives, once abundant, that had become extinct in the wild more than 40 years ago.
Mongolia is a land of the horse. The warriors of Genghis Khan and his successors in the 13th century conquered most of Asia on the backs of sturdy horses.
Today, nomads still mind their flocks from the saddle, and they never look more at home than in a race across the empty distances of the Gobi Desert, a study in fluid motion and the centaurian harmony of man and horse as one.
But even the Mongols never managed to domesticate the wildest of horses, a species known as Equus ferus przewalskii, or P-horse for short. It is one of just two extant species of horse. All the breeds of the familiar domestic horse, from Shetland pony to Clydesdale, belong to the other species, which submitted to the bit and bridle 6,000 years ago. Przewalski's horse (pronounced zheh-VAHL-skee and named for the 19th-century Russian explorer who first identified it) is about the size of a large pony, with a stocky body in shades of tan to tawny, short brown legs and a dark mane that stands straight up.
( Read More )
As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS, STEVEN LEE MYERS, ANDREW C. REVKIN and SIMON ROMERO, The New York Times, October 10, 2005
CHURCHILL, Manitoba - It seems harsh to say that bad news for polar bears is good for Pat Broe. Mr. Broe, a Denver entrepreneur, is no more to blame than anyone else for a meltdown at the top of the world that threatens Arctic mammals and ancient traditions and lends credibility to dark visions of global warming.
Still, the newest study of the Arctic ice cap - finding that it faded this summer to its smallest size ever recorded - is beginning to make Mr. Broe look like a visionary for buying this derelict Hudson Bay port from the Canadian government in 1997. Especially at the price he paid: about $7.
By Mr. Broe's calculations, Churchill could bring in as much as $100 million a year as a port on Arctic shipping lanes shorter by thousands of miles than routes to the south, and traffic would only increase as the retreat of ice in the region clears the way for a longer shipping season.
With major companies and nations large and small adopting similar logic, the Arctic is undergoing nothing less than a great rush for virgin territory and natural resources worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Even before the polar ice began shrinking more each summer, countries were pushing into the frigid Barents Sea, lured by undersea oil and gas fields and emboldened by advances in technology. But now, as thinning ice stands to simplify construction of drilling rigs, exploration is likely to move even farther north.
( Read More )
DNA Studies Suggest Emperor Is Most Ancient of Penguins
By CARL ZIMMER, The New York Times, October 11, 2005
Penguins seem to have originated in Antarctica when it was temperate and forested. Emperor penguins, above, adapted to the cold as the climate changed.
Penguins are some of the most improbable animals on the planet. They have wings and feathers but cannot fly. They are not fish, but they have been recorded as deep as 1,755 feet underwater. And the most improbable is the emperor penguin, which waddles across 70 miles of Antarctic ice to reach its breeding grounds. New research on penguin DNA suggests that the emperor also has the most ancient lineage of living penguins.
Scientists have long recognized a link from penguins to petrels and albatrosses. While albatrosses have more conventional bird bodies, they share subtle traits with penguins, like the arrangement of beak bones. They are generally considered the closest living relatives of penguins.
Penguins' ancestors probably began their evolutionary march while Tyrannosaurus rex walked the earth. In a paper to be published in The Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Canadian scientists investigated the origin of penguins by studying their genes. They analyzed segments from three genes, comparing their sequence in all 18 species of penguins and in other birds.
( Read More )
Practices: No Shots, No Service? A Pediatrician's Quandary
By ERIC NAGOURNEY, The New York Times, October 11, 2005
More than a third of pediatricians surveyed say doctors are within their rights to refuse to see families if the parents refuse to have their children vaccinated.
The survey findings, published in the current Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, come at a time when a growing number of parents, skeptical of the benefits of vaccines and concerned about their safety, are saying no.
( Read More )
