The rise of divas didn’t start with Beyonce or Britney Spears. Powerful women have been around for ages. These women are strong warriors and naturally beautiful. Here are five historic women who were divas before it became a trend.
Let me know some of your favorite divas from history. Comment below.
Many have labeled 2015 as the year “that transgender issues became mainstream”. However, a recent article published by CNN shed light on an under-looked barrier: the cost of being transgendered.
Nicholas Ballou binds his chest each day before leaving his home. Ballou, 23, a transgender male, cannot afford top surgery, CNN reports.
Statistics show that it can cost more than $100,000 for a transgender person to transition, which means that very few can afford Caitlyn Jenner’s transformation from male to female. Many transgender people transition without surgery, citing the prohibitive cost of the procedures and the challenge of finding a health insurance that will cover the surgery as the main reasons. Now, could crowdfunding be a game-changer?
Ari Klamka, 28, is one young mind exploiting the power of online communities. Klamka is transgender and has created a GoFundMe page to cover the cost of fully transitioning.
“I began my transition about two years ago when I came out to close friends as transgender,” Klamka writes. “Shortly after I began my physical transformation by starting testosterone injections. I’ve legally changed my name and gone though countless physical and social changes over the past two years. Though the next step I will be taking is the biggest and most important to me.”
He plans to have chest reconstructive “top” surgery, but this is not the only thing he has to pay for. “There are many expenses related to surgery that my insurance is not covering, including extensive unpaid time off of work for recovery after surgery,” Klamka explains.
Such fundraising campaigns are increasingly popular. You can even find a comprehensive guide to surgery fundraising for trans guys online.
Beauty line Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics has also released a limited-edition Lip Tar, with the sole purpose of raising funds to help one of its long-time employees to complete her gender transition surgery.
January Hunt, was assigned male at birth, but identifies as female. In 2010, she decided to begin her transition. “Without the language or the backbone of a community to support me,” she writes on her fundraising page, “it was easy to be led astray by the narrow two-gender system presented by society. I decided the only way to move forward with my life was to stop ignoring the elephant in every space I set foot in, and begin my transition rites.”
Unfortunately, three years after she started hormone replacement therapy, Hunt has come to a halting stop due to health insurance.
“The medical industry/industrial complex has effectively kept transgender people from accessing their bodies for many years, partially through bureaucratic procedural hurdles, and partly through general ignorance of trans experiences,” she explains. “Because of that, the medical industry insists on labeling gender confirming/affirming surgeries as cosmetic rather than medically necessary.” According to the Encyclopedia of Surgery, there are between 100 and 500 genital surgeries every year in the United States as part of gender transition.
What do you think of crowdfunding campaigns helping transgender people pay for their surgery? Share your views in the comments section below.
We have all seen what psychics can do. They can see the future and move things with their minds. But those are the basic psychic abilities you see all the time in movies and on television. Psychic powers go way beyond that. Here are the top five coolest psychic abilities you wish you had.
Which psychic abilities would you like to have? What would be included in your top five psychic powers?
Although scientists based in Seattle predicted a miserably hot and mortally dry summer, in partial contra mass viewers’ ogling of the new Wet Hot American Summer, the reality of this year’s hottest days in places like Puget Sound, Hood Canal, et al, are exceeding said scientists’ expectations; we’ve had record-breaking heat-waves, a weasley snowpack, and an unrelenting drought. All these malheurs are now evidenced in the Puget Sound.
“I wasn’t expecting the conditions to be this extreme,” exhaled University of Washington climate scientist Nick Bond. “I thought it would be dry and warm, but I wasn’t expecting this.”
Indeed, scientists from county, state, and even federal agencies announced their concern on Thursday about the ecological consequences of these developments in the Puget Sound, which are now expected to carry on in the foreground as El Niño awakes in the ecological background. The scientists referred to are trying to comprehend the ultimate impact of massive volumes of warming water after the already concerning closures of shellfish, an increase in the population of toxic algae and reports of greater numbers of dead fish.
The Northwest region seems to have taken a “one-two” beating in the form of that weasley snowpack followed by the drought, surmised Bond. A gigantic volume of unusually warm water resting just off of the West Coast, nicknamed “The Blob,” may be at fault. Surpassing nominal temperatures of this time of year by 7 degrees, from Alaska to Mexico, since way back in 2003, “[t]he blob is [certainly] rearing its ugly head,” Bond punned.
Buoys bobbing in the South Puget Sound, Hood Canal and the main basin have shown temperatures warmer in both deep and surface waters, some of which are a staggering 4 degrees above normal, says Jan Newton, UW oceanographer. The oxygen content of the Hood Canal is low and may keep declining through September, until upwelling ceases and the Blob returns to the Sound. Both temps and low O2 levels will be a challenge for local organisms.
“In very severe conditions, we’re concerned about fish kills,” said Newton. “We’re going to be continuing to monitor this.”
If that’s not enough, the marine life present has also taken a heavy slug to the face. A shellfish harvest was shut down early this past April, just two months before the normal time for biotoxin closure, mentioned Jerry Borchert of the Washington State Department of Health’s shellfish-safety program. Several parts of Hood Canal (a first!) were forced to shut down in light of greater toxin concentrations, believed to be caused by the rising water temperatures, said Borchert.
Salmon are among the many types of fish to have experienced a minor holocaust, and this has raised concerns regarding the long-term consequences on the food chain, warned National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries scientist Correigh Greene.
Some of us humans just may love this warm weather, but the NOAA oceanographer, named Simone Alin, related a story in which she went for a little swim in the Hood Canal this summer, and, in a first for her, Did Not Feel Numb when she left the water behind.
Those with phobias about insects may cringe at the mere mention of the word “bee.” Entomologists, however, are now huddling together to get a closer look at the structure of bee life.
One particular area of interest focuses on the queen bee. After all, she has thousands of children to rear and given the somewhat recent discussion of vaccinations/anti-vaccinations protests going on, it is somewhat fitting to shed light on a new study, which reveals that a queen bee actually protects her babies by vaccinating them. By doing so, they enter the world naturally inoculated.
However odd or extraordinary that sounds, it’s true. Bees naturally vaccinate against disease but how they do so is the question. Just today, however, a study from researchers at Arizona State University was published in the PLOS journal that highlights the process of food vaccination.
According to the study, vitellogenin is the specific protein that plays a vital role in bee inoculation. This is necessary because as a queen bee begins rearing children, workers that bring food to her often carry diseases back to the hive after a foray for pollen. Fortunately, the queen bee’s body is able to digest these bacteria in her gut, which later wind up stored in the queen’s “fat body,” an organ similar to a liver. After this happens, pieces of the pathogen binds to the aforementioned protein and then get transferred to babies through blood and blood protein. As a result, they are inadvertently vaccinated by food vaccination.
With this new information, scientists are now experimenting with the idea of creating edible food vaccinations, which can assist with the protection of declining insect populations. According to Dalial Freitak, the co-author of the study, “We are patenting a way to produce a harmless vaccine, as well as how to cultivate the vaccines and introduce them to bee hives through a cocktail the bees would eat. They would then be able to stave off disease.”
The International Space Station made headlines months ago, after the very first space espresso machine, the ISSpresso, was introduced to the orbiting laboratory. European Space Agency’s, Samantha Cristoforetti, welcomed it with open arms and let the world know of her enthusiasm by posting onto social media. Now, astronauts aboard the ISS have another thing to celebrate. Japanese distillery, Suntory, is planning to send whiskey to space to see how the trip might affect the taste of the alcohol.
Today, Suntory is one of Japan’s largest and oldest makers of alcoholic beverages. The company, which was established in 1899, currently makes both best-selling and award-winning Japanese whiskey. As such, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Suntory would become the company to send whiskey to space, with the International Space Station as the ultimate destination.
Although nothing can be stated certainly, researchers believe that storing the whiskey on the ISS could cause it to age in a different manner than it ordinarily would on Earth – mainly due to the zero-gravity conditions of space. Of course, in order to prove this hypothesis, the alcohol must be sealed in jars and left to age for over a year. Researchers, however, anticipate that the flavor of the beverage will be mellower in taste. Why exactly? Well, according to scientists from Tokyo University and the University of Tokyo, this might be due to the molecular structure of the alcohol. Supposedly, when liquid convection is stopped, the whiskey develops a mellower flavor. Thus, by aging the beverage in a “convection-free, low-gravity environment, on the ISS,” scientists are expecting to create a perfectly mellow drink.
The said mission will take place in the Japanese module of the ISS – known as Kibo – and will test five different types of products. Unfortunately, for us grounded civilians, the space whiskey will not be available to purchase, according to AFP reports. Rather, the samples will be held in a laboratory so that researchers can conduct various tests. Luckily for Cristoforetti, there’s espresso to keep her busy.
Ebola, that virus you used to see flooding every mainstream TV broadcast for years, warning us to be watchers in these End Days, has carried on in Africa, despite its low tide on the American side. But recently, an unorthodox clinical trial in Guinea proved a particular ebola vaccine effective in protecting the masses from this mortal virus.
No, not a cure, but a vaccine was just revealed through The Lancet, which showed the injection guaranteed 100% protection after only 10-days post-injection. Manufactured by Merck, the vaccine is believed to be the answer to this 18-month long epidemic in West Africa.
“This will go down in history as one of those hallmark public health efforts,” announced Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. He wasn’t directly involved in the study, but, claiming kinship, he continues; “[w]e will teach about this in public health schools.”
“It’s a wonderful result and a fantastic illustration of how vaccines can be developed very quickly and can be used in an outbreak situation to control the disease,” added Adrian Hill, a vaccine researcher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom (also speaking from a sense of kinship).
This new Ebola vaccine was originally developed by researchers present at the Public Health Agency of Canada, and contains the Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV), which can infect only livestock, with the ebola surface protein stitched into its structure. This is one of two vaccines presently undergoing tests in countries rife with Ebola. Another vaccine is manufactured by the company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The study mentioned above was carried out by Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, along with colleagues at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo, the Guinean Ministry of Health, et al.
The word was given to start the trial last October, but this didn’t transform into action until just this past March. However, by this time Ebola cases were at a low-tide, and what dire cases there still were were scattered across a large ambiguous area of Guinea. So to show that the new vaccines could prove effective in a standard randomized trial, the researchers needed to enroll more patients than was logistically likely.
So what the researchers did to cop the situ was to design their vaccination dispersal system around what’s known as ring vaccination, according to which only patients who’ve recently contracted Ebola, in addition to their virus sires (if you will), were vaccinated. These abstract rings, or clusters, were totally randomized. For 48 people, the ebola vaccine was administered immediately following the first Ebola detection in their local community. In 42 others, vaccination teams returned three whole weeks later. Then the researchers performed a count, taking note of how many new Ebola cases existed in each ring. Since they were still unsure how long the ebola vaccine would need to take effect, the researchers only included cases occurring ten or more days post-vaccination for primary analysis. No cases existed amidst the 2014 population (the ones immediately vaccinated), but 16 of 2,380 who received the shot three weeks later tested positive. This means that, per the bounds of this study, the vaccine tested 100% effective.
“It surprised me how quickly you can intervene with a vaccination and have an effect,” exclaimed Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust research charity, which co-funded the study. “It’s possible to do that sort of complex work in very, very complex environments–ethically, socially, culturally and scientifically. You can do it. That is a revelation for many people.”
The success of this ebola vaccine was so unexpected and welcome and total that the trial’s data and safety monitoring board (wholly autonomous; unbiased by fiat), immediately recommended to cease the vaccine’s current implementation, and move it on to widespread dispersal, in order to vaccinate all clusters post haste, sans any hesitation or bureaucratic stalling. The research team has gladly obliged.
Last week, WHO reported just seven new Ebola cases: four in Guinea, three in Sierra Leone. This is the lowest in more than a year. Although celebrations and mayhaps a few tears are in order, WHO has warned us not to relent until the disease is well in hand, again.
On July 1, 2015, animal conservationists and celebrities joined together in a public outcry after the death of Cecil the Lion, who was shot and killed by Walter Palmer, an American recreational hunter. At the time, the male African lion was a major attraction of the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, as well as a subject of study for Oxford University.
Now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is looking for his killer. The agency, whose mission is to conserve and protect fish, wildlife and plants, has already come knocking on his door. However, Palmer, who illegally killed Cecil the Lion, is no where to be found.
According to Ed Grace, the chief of law enforcement for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, many attempts have already been made in an effort to get into contact with the recreational hunter. If he is found, Palmer, a dentist hailing from Minnesota, will face the consequences of his action. According to Zimbabwe’s environment minister, Oppah Muchinguri, in a news conference on Friday, “We are appealing to the responsible authorities for his extradition to Zimbabwe so that he can be held accountable for his illegal action.”
At this time, U.S. officials have not received an official request for the extradition. Following the killing, Palmer had already fled back to the United States, before Zimbabwe government officials had realized what happened to Cecil the lion. Since Tuesday, he has fallen off the radar, but has previously stated that he “deeply regret[s]” the killing, and that the unfortunate incident was the result of his reliance on local guides, which lead him to believe that the hunt was legal. At that time, he had not been contacted by authorities, but agreed to assist them with any inquiries about they may have about the killing.
A White House petition has also requested that Palmer be extradited. In order to get a response from the Obama administration, the document need to receive 100,000 signatures by August 27, 2015. Since its release, however, it has received nearly double the amount of signatures – 170,000 in total – by Friday morning.
It has always been the goal of humanity to understand the world around them, Aristotle looked to the stars, Einstein looked to atoms, and Freud looked to psychology. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that scientists have consistently delved into the microscopic world to learn more about diseases – specifically, what causes them and what can cure them. DNA sequencing helps in that process of finding cures for disease or treatments. But to do so, you must learn the lingo of DNA coding and understand the fundamentals of that.
Once one delves into the world of DNA, it becomes evident how intricate it really is. As such, PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) was developed as a way to better sequence and copy DNA for further study. The entire process became a major game changer at the time it came out in the nineties. It even was recognized for its impact in 1993 with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Today, PCR is used in a variety of practices for DNA: diagnosing disease, identifying bacteria, matching DNA in criminal cases, etc. Because sequencing DNA is a complex process, the same applies to PCR, which is partially why it takes so long to have a PCR test conducted. Fortunately, a new study could present a solution to that problem.
The study, which was conducted by researchers from the University of California in Berkeley, was published in Light Science & Applications. Of course, speeding up the PCR process has been talked about for years, and yet, no one was able to come up with a feasible way to carry it out.
To finally accomplish the task, researchers used LEDs to heat electrons in the DNA solution are heated on gold film, which acts as a conductor. By doing so, the temperatures increased at fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit per second and cooled down nearly as fast – only ten degrees slower than the heating process. With this new method, the PCR test can be conducted in minutes rather than hours.
Colorful, curious, quadruped. The Salamanders of North America are intriguing little sprites, but scientists are now warning us that they are in danger of succumbing to a great threat.
“This is an imminent threat, and a place where policy could have a very positive effect,” suggested San Francisco State University biologist Vance Vredenburg, one of the researchers responsible for the study’s recent surfacing. “We actually have a decent chan[ce] at preventing a major catastrophe.”
What’s threatening North American Salamanders is Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (aka Bsal), a pathogen similar in kind to a different killer fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatitidis (aka Bd), the second of which has killed more than 200 amphibian species worldwide since 1999. In some areas, Bd has actually wiped out forty percent of amphibian species.
Bd kills its hosts by hardening their skin until they are no longer capable of regulating electrolytes, and sets them onto an irreversible track to cardiac arrest.
“One of the things that I find remarkable about this is that unlike when we first figured out what was going on with Bd, no one could even imagine that one pathogen could cause so much damage across all these different species, because we had never seen anything like that ever before,” Vredenburg laments. “What’s encouraging about this time, with Bsal, is that the scientific community figured it out really quickly, and we can learn a lesson from the past.”
The lesson we might take from this is to remember our strengths, not our failings. Despite all our failings, as scientists, as caretakers of other species, because of our scientific tenacity, we were able to learn the pattern of this pathogen’s dispersal across various species. In North America, half of all 676 official salamander species known worldwide live in constant danger. Interestingly, this half represents nine out of ten families in the order Caudata. But unless we continue to study their local habitats scattered across the countryside, it may be difficult to maintain our knowledge of the three high-risk areas, where the highest rates of Bsal infection occur.
At the moment, these three danger-zones include the Southeast (i.e. the southern tip of the Appalachian Mountains), the Pacific Northwest, and the Sierra Nevada highlands of Central Mexico.
Mark Zuckerberg, the Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of Facebook, recently announced that Aquila, Facebook’s solar-powdered Internet drone, is ready to take flight. Although the following months will involve plenty of tests, the unmanned plane, which boasts a 140-foot wingspan, will eventually provide Internet access to remote regions around the world.
In a video posted to his Facebook page, Zuckerberg introduced the craft, stating the following: “It has the wingspan of a Boeing 737, but weighs less than a car and can stay in the air for months at a time.” To do so, the plane relies on a laser, which will beam data to a base station located on the ground. The initative will ultimately rely on a system of drones, which will set up a linked network to bring Internet to largely rural areas.
The actual version of the Facebook drone was built in the United Kingdom, and Facebook, the immensely population online social networking service, plans to test it later this year in the United States. When operational, the plane will fly above commercial airplanes and glide down to its lowest point at night in order to conserve power. To keep its weight at a minimum, the craft was also designed without wheels and must therefore, be launched with the help of helium balloons.
Why is this Facebook drone so important? According to Zuckerberg, about 10% of the world’s population lives in regions with existing Internet infrastructure. The statistic seems unimaginable, especially for many of us who cannot leave the house without our smart phones in hand. However, in order to efficiently and affordably connect everyone, new technologies must be built to cater to that specific purpose.
This, apparently, is not a goal specific to just Facebook alone. The solar-powered plane faces competition from Google. The company has developed a similar program called “Project Loon,” which involves attaching transmitters to high-altitude helium balloon. The said balloons will also fly at similar altitudes, roughly around 60,000ft (18km) and 90,000 ft (27km) in the air.
Nearly everyone has some sort of opinion about climate change in one form or another, regardless of whether or not it’s a positive or negative comment. But what cannot be easily ignored is the impact it has on the world around us.
New facts often come to light about the negative effects climate change has on the ecosystem. Rising sea levels, for example, has been a major cause of concern, but new evidence has shown that trees are also suffering just as much.
The Greenbelt is an environmentally protected area located in Ontario, Canada. The protected area, which was established ten years ago in February, covers overs 1.8 million acres. Today, however, it has fallen victim to climate change. In a recent study published in the Science journal, research revealed that drought leaves a lingering effect on the foliage in the area, essentially causing dry trees.
The problem, however, cannot be easily remedied. The researcher behind the study, William Anderegg, mentioned that dry trees will continue to suffer for at least more four years after the onset of a drought. In fact, the examined trees grew an average of nine percent less the first year after a drought and roughly five percent less the second year. This is quite troubling as trees are vital to us and to many other organisms within an ecosystem.
The problem can cause a variety of things to happen. The dry trees can make a full recovery, but older trees are not nearly as capable of such miraculous feats and may suffer long-term damage, ultimately affecting how trees store carbon from the air. More CO2 may linger in the air and the long term damage can result in earlier death of trees and the increased release of carbon. The road to recovery may also take years, as it is not an instantaneous thing.
Another extrasolar planet, now called HD 219134b was just discovered, and it’s actually a rocky planet, like Earth. It’s also the closest rocky planet (a super earth!) discovered this close to our own solar system. Huzzah!
Too far for you to walk or drive. Or fly, for that matter. The super earth, HD 219134b, is 21 light years away, but it is possible for us to explore the planet someday.
This newfound planet is also a “transiting” world, meaning that, from our perspective, it crosses in front of its host star. Of course we can’t see it from Earth, even if we had the most powerful telescopes at hand, because its star is so bright in comparison. Imagine trying to see a bird descend from the sky in the same line of sight as the sun.
When a transiting planet passes in front of its host star, the host star’s brightness drops to a significant enough degree because of some of that light is being eclipsed by the transiting planet. This means we can measure the drop in brightness, and therefore, infer the planet’s mass and size. From here we can calculate the planet’s density, and with that knowledge, we can know whether the planet is rocky like Mars, Venus or Earth, or gaseous, like Jupiter, Saturn or Neptune (or even icy, like Pluto).
“Transiting exoplanets are worth their weight in gold because they can be extensively characterized,” said Michael Werner, the project scientist for the Spitzer mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “This exoplanet will be one of the most studied for decades to come.”
New data on this extrasolar planet HD 219134b, set to be released soon after publishing, will be available through the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. This data shows, among other things, that the massive exoplanet is 4.5 times Earth’s mass, and roughly 1.6 times the diameter. This is relatively close to Earth’s size and mass, when compared to the “Earth-like” planets” scientists are usually getting so excited about.
The problem is that this newly discovered super earth is much too close to its sun for it to harbor life–whether originated or transplanted. It orbits its star once every three days. This planet, and all of its properties were confirmed using only NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, but scientists hope researchers will soon focus many more telescopes on the new find.
A prevalent concern in the world of ecology is that species can be killed off due to non-natural causes, mainly as a result of the human population’s negative effect. This, at least, was a major concern for the wolf species as its population continued to decline.
Even so, many arguments have been spurred between animal advocates and environmentalists, about whether or not the population is actually in decline. As such, research continues to be conducted on the species.
Interestingly, in a case of mistaken identity, new research suggests that the golden jackal of Africa is actually more closely related to a wolf species.
The research was published in the scientific journal, Current Biology. According to the study, certain samples of golden jackal DNA matched more closely to grey wolves than to the DNA of jackals in the area, which was curious for scientists as they do not share many physical similarities. Furthermore, there are no grey wolves in Africa.
Up until this point, science has not paid much attention to the jackal, recognizing only three species: the black-backed jackal, the side-striped jackal, and the golden jackal, all of which are endemic to Africa (although Golden jackals also live in Eurasia). Intrigued by this finding, further testing was conducted by researchers in order to determine how this was possible – how wolves could have relatives there.
The commonality caused researchers to reevaluate what they thought they already knew about the golden jackal. Although, the morphological similarities are very apparent between the different varieties of jackals, the DNA is essentially different.
One of the authors behind the research, Klaus Koepfli, stated that this new finding was the first ‘new’ species discovery in the last latter half of a 200 year span. After this initial finding, researchers have now dubbed the new species the “Golden Wolf”, the missing wolf species in Africa. The event makes you wonder what other species may have been categorized incorrectly.
As much as most space enthusiasts are reluctant to do so, it may be time for us to look not to the extrasolar planets, not to dwarf planets, not to black holes or quasar punches or solar storms–but to comets. Comet 67P, specifically, which the European Space Agency’s Philae lander has been investigating since November of last year, has just identified compounds that are also the necessary building blocks of life.
This was thought to be the case for quite some time, as there was simply no other way to explain how life on Earth got started. For years, scientists have thought that comets acted as seeds to an early Earth, bringing in basic materials with which Earth was later able to furnish life, and a thriving ecosystem.
However, precisely how life originated on Earth is a mystery still annoying scientists to this day. So far, the general consensus is that we understand the few essential ingredients involved. Water and a few chemical building blocks had to be present, but they certainly weren’t always. Perhaps these things were delivered to the Earth over three billion years ago.
Most comets persist in places like the Kuiper Belt, far beyond the reach of most studying probes (save, perhaps for New Horizons), but every once in a while, a stray comet is moved out of its wide orbit. Comets’ trademark tails are formed by the increased heat they experience as they approach the sun, as has been observed for several centuries. The cool thing this tells us about comets today is that they carry large quantities of water.
But before the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft left for comet 67p in 2004, no one really knew if there was anything in the realm of necessary building blocks in comets. Was it just water and rocks?
The answer is a resounding yes. Published in the journal Science, Philae found 16 organic compounds, and four of them–methyl isocyanate, acetone, propionaldehyde, and acetamide–were not known to even exist on comets. Of more interesting note, it also found benzene, which is a cyclic hydrocarbon, and plenty of C02.
The dynamo theory explains the mechanism by which a celestial body generates a magnetic field. For a long time, it has been suggested that Earth’s magnetic field would eventually weaken. The field can change over time and may even occasionally flip, causing the north to become the south and vice versa. Now, new research, published on July 28th in Nature, states that Earth’s weakening magnetic field is actually a sign that another flip is to be anticipated.
We owe our livelihood to the magnetic field surrounding our planet, as it protects us from the sun, keeping life as we know it from dying off. Without it, Earth would probably look very much like a barren wasteland.
So what do we know about Earth’s magnetic field? Based on scientific evidence, it is at least 3.2 billion years old. As such, examining untouched rocks from that era may help scientists more accurately approximate how old the magnetic field is. This is exactly what John A.Tarduno sought out to do by dating rocks of zircon crystals. The researcher recently released his findings in the journal, Science.
His results revealed that the rocks dated back to 3.3 to 4.2 billion years old, during a period of time when the field was much stronger. Upon further reflection, it was determined that Earth’s magnetic field is actually closer to 4.4 billion years old.
There is still a lot we don’t know about this process. Tarduno also states that if the data from the zircon had been altered in any way, so to speak, then all the information yielded from the crystals would be the same.
Other celestial bodies, such as Mars and the moon, also hold evidence of remnant magnetizations of similar ages. But since that time, their global magnetic fields have been lost. As a result of this, solar winds could have stripped Mars’ atmosphere, causing a change in its chemical makeup. This could ultimately have brought an end to the “warm, wet period” that may or may not have supported primitive forms of life.
At this years Black Hat hacker conference, security researchers, Runa Sandvik and Michael Auger, will demonstrate how they are able to exploit the vulnerabilities of a self-targeting sniper rifle to change the scope’s variables when planning out a shot, and even bricking the rifle altogether.
Sandvik and Auger are a married hacker couple and have spent a year researching a way to hack into these smart rifles. The techniques allow a knowledgeable hacker to exploit its sight through Wi-Fi.
Once the rifle has been infected, a hacker can then use software to manipulate a scope’s calculations, disable the scope completely, or just prevent the gun from firing entirely. In a demonstration the couple did for WIRED, the two demonstrated how they were able to manipulate the targeting system to accurately hit a target that they chose rather than one chosen by the shooter.
“You can make it lie constantly to the user so they’ll always miss their shot,” said Sandvik.
According to Sandvik, hackers can perform a number of different functions to disable a shooter’s weapon. An attacker can lock a user out, preventing them from using the smart rifle, or completely erase the gun’s file system. This would essentially render the scope useless, leaving the shooter to have to aim manually.
The file system in TrackingPoint’s self-aiming system is a vital part of the scope. The system allows a shooter to designate a target, which tells the computer to begin dialing in variables needed to make an accurate shot. It’s important to note that the gun will not fire until the shooter has pulled the trigger. Once the trigger is pulled, the gun will then determine when the best time to fire is and take the shot when the barrel is perfectly aligned.
Fortunately, Sandvik and Auger are working together with TrackingPoint in order to develop a software patch that will quickly address the severe vulnerability of smart rifles. While it’s not ready yet, TrackingPoint founder, John McHale, said the company would be mailing out a USB drive to customers in order to update their rifles as soon as possible.
“The shooter’s got to pull the rifle’s trigger, and the shooter is responsible for making sure it’s pointed in a safe direction. It’s my responsibility to make sure my scope is pointing where my gun is pointing,” said Hale in an interview.
The emergency of smart devices means many of these devices can be taken advantage of, but it’s good to see security researchers and developers working together to get these issues resolved as quickly as possible.
It may be difficult for you to float on water. You may be the kind of person that believes walking on water is possible, but surely we can all agree that jumping on water–this–this is surely a feat of supernatural fitness, one would think. Even for a robot. Especially for a robot. The fact is that insects have been doing this for a long, long time, and we’ve just learned how to mimic this evolutionary marvel with mechanical verve.
In order for any object to literally jump from water, it has to apply a relatively large force into a surface that seems designed to give way in fractions of a second. The surface tension of water is so low that as soon as you even begin to push, the damn breaks. How is something so intuitively impossible accomplished?
The answer has been carved by a robot whose existence has been explained in detail in a study published in Science on Thursday. The researchers involved designed the robot so that it applies exactly the amount of force required to lift it into the air, without the excessive force that leaves us flat-footed bipedals treading through it.
The robot under question is designed to mimic the motion of water striders, a family of insects capable of skimming the surface of water like ice. Needless to say, this requires very delicate attention to motion and the layout of total vector forces. In order to provide these subtle shifts at the precise moments, high-speed cameras and computer models are employed to cease the all downward forces as they are just about to cross the threshold of breaking water’s surface.
The relevant researchers have also found that these jumping insects gracefully sweep their legs inward as they jump forward, demonstrating an intuitive understanding of what’s needed to maximize the available force generated when they push off of the water. Martial artists use similar motions for comparable reasons. This is why insects are able to jump just as high off of water as they can off of land, and it’s now a feature of our jumping robots, too.
To be honest, this invention seems to have only one conceivable purpose, so far: to study and further our understanding of the very insects the machines’ design is based upon. As stated above, the extremely delicate mechanisms required for such maneuvering are supremely fascinating, and humans are a little too big to try it.
However, the general idea of designing robots capable of jumping higher, jumping with more efficiency, interacting with water in ways humans can only dream of doing; this is something that sounds like the design of some futuristic clandestine water war. And that actually sounds pretty cool.
The boxfish has unique armor that could serve as inspiration for body armor, robots and even flexible electronics, a new research has found.
Engineers at the University of California, San Diego, unveiled that a boxfish’s hard frame and flexible body make it an ideal animal to study for inspiration for armor materials.
“The boxfish has been able to thrive in nature for over 35 million years with effectively the same armor,” Steven Naleway a materials science and engineering Ph.D. student and co-author on the paper, told Clapway.
More than 1,000 tech experts, scientists and researchers have written a letter warning about the dangers of autonomous weapons and killer robots, so what could the boxfish actually do for the human race?
The boxfish is small and yet it survives in the ocean where it is surrounded by bigger, aggressive fish, at a depth of 50 to 100 meters. How? Thanks to its armor made of mineralized plates called scutes that – unlike many fish species – do not overlap, researchers found.
Instead at the interfaces of these scutes there are interdigitating structures known as sutures, able to provide a carapace that gives both strength and some flexibility to the fish.
“That means that there are no weak points, should a bite from a predator land exactly in between scales,” Naleway said. Together, the outer and inner layers of the boxfish armor provide the creature with protection unique in the natural world.
Researchers are currently investigating what mechanical advantage boxfish’s design might provide to humans. The current research focuses on the characterization of bio-inspired materials.
“Expanding on this adaptation through the process of bio-inspiration, where features from nature are mimicked or used to inspire new devices and structures based in advanced materials and processing techniques, could allow for this same design to be applied to modern engineering issues where strength and flexibility need to be balanced,” Naleway explained.
A Multi-University Research Initiative, through the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, is funding the study.
“This program brings together top researchers from a number of universities in order to investigate a common goal. In our case, the aim is to investigate a variety of biological organisms in order to learn about nature’s impact resistant materials”, Naleway explained.
According to professor Joanna McKittrick, a materials science expert and one of the senior authors on the paper, the approach is unique as researchers are using engineering principles to understand biological design.
What do you think of this new discovery and of how it could help designing the robots of the future? Share your opinion in the comments section below.
This is a very controversial topic right now, with people on both sides, either agreeing or disagreeing with the situation at hand. If you haven’t been following the story of Cecil the Lion, here is a short recap for you: Cecil was a famous lion in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, and as the number of lions is Africa are dwindling lower and lower due to big game hunters, Cecil’s death finally sparked the discussion of the issue at hand. Politicians and conservation organizations are now discussing a bill banning the imports of lion trophies in the United States.
Due to the way the Cecil the Lion was killed and presented, several people think that Walter James Palmer, the hunter, was just showing off, which also begs the discussion of the ethics concerning big game hunts. Palmer has since received numerous death threats and hate mail, is under investigation for the hunt that is now said to have been illegal in the area, and many believe he has gone into hiding.
In honor of Cecil the Lion, here are 5 proud pictures of the beautiful lions, with some facts about the lion as well:
It is clear that Cecil the Lion was a beloved member of Africa, and his story is a sad one. We will see in the upcoming weeks what will happen to Palmer, and if Cecil’s death was in vain or if it arouses enough awareness for there to be more effort made in the fight against poaching and big game hunting.
With unknown aspirations, perhaps for mining in peace; perhaps for the pursuit of that vital pleasure found in muttering the phrase “scientific progress”; or perhaps, for interplanetary demolition and genocide, Japan has just successfully tested the most powerful laser in the known galaxy. The Laser is a 2-petawatt pulse of light. That’s 2 x 10^15, or the number two with fifteen zeroes behind it, for any reading-rusty engineers. The Laser works by concentrating an immense amount of power through an extremely thin line for one picosecond (a trillionth of a second), but this is more than enough time to demonstrate the laser’s superior firepower potential.
This particular laser was conceived and designed at Osaka University by Japanese researchers. It is three hundred feet long and is known colloquially as the LFEX, or Laser for Fast Ignition Experiments.
In the US, the most powerful laser yet constructed is a one-petawatt laser, developed at the University of Texas, in Austin. However, the Japanese LFEX version is capable of generating 100 times the amount of energy than the one tested in Austin. But the fact that the Japanese have beaten us is not the concern here, no, the concern is how little energy was required for this massive burst of energy.
Since the actual duration of time the laser existed was so short, the LFEX only required the amount of energy a microwave requires in two short seconds’ span. Imagine a new kind of magnum.
In order for the LFEX to convert and generate so much power in such a short amount of time, it uses a series of glass lamps which amplify the pulse as it passes through, one after another, getting stronger and stronger with each pass, and all of this lasts so short a time that one just needs to marvel.
Osaka scientists have said that the power emitted by this laser is the equivalent of 1,000 times the world’s total electricity consumption. One scientist named Junji Kawanaka (associate professor of electrical engineering), said that the team is still in the process of completing a 2-petawatt laser, and that the team is also slated to build a 10-petawatt laser in the near future. To imagine the devastation, keep in mind that lasers of a mere 50,000 watts can annihilate a drone from one mile’s distance.
Not necessarily known for their innovative designs, Canon has now left photographers in awe with their pioneering new Canon ME20F-SH video camera. Pushing far past the limits of what cameras have done before the Canon ME20F-SH is capable of photographic feats that are second to none in the world of it’s now seemingly archaic predecessors. There is no doubt that Canon has pushed the bar for what cameras can, and should be able to further than ever and the way we take pictures may never be the same again.
The Canon ME20F-SH video camera is like nothing that has ever come before it in the history of advanced camera technology. Probably the most astounding feature of the Canon ME20F-SH is the almost unfathomable ISO sensitivity built into the device. Canon’s ME20F-SH sports an astounding 4,000,000 ISO. This speed is unlike anything ever used in video technology before, and has the capability to see much better in the dark than the human eye is capable of according to a Canon press release from earlier today, “Camera can be easily incorporated into existing infrastructures and systems to provide high-quality video capture even where subjects might not be seen with the naked eye.”
The camera can also be used with any of Canon’s EF lenses, and supports full HD video even in the lowest light imaginable.
It sounds too good to be true, because for most of us who want to put one in our camera bags, it is. Not only is the Canon ME20F-SH video camera going to tote some of the most advanced camera technology to date, it is accompanied by one of the largest price tags of any camera before it. The video camera will cost around $30,000 when it is released sometime in December 2015. This is out of the price range for most consumers, but with everything it can do, this camera isn’t really for the average consumer.
It has a versatile interface that can be used for shooting many types of video, but the Canon really shines in its ability to shoot video in total darkness. According to Canon, “ Nighttime surveillance and security, cinematic production, reality television, and nature/wildlife documentaries are just some of the ME20F-SH’s many possible usage applications. With the ability to capture color video in extreme low-light conditions and its simplistic and versatile design…” The cameras advanced design makes it ready for anything, but if you want to bring this camera home, you may need to take out a loan, because the hefty price tag makes it unaffordable on almost any budget. Canon’s ME20F-SH is defying what video cameras were thought to be capable of, and changing the way that professionals shoot HD video. You may not be able to afford one yet, but soon we will all be able to enjoy the flawless video shot on one of these amazing cameras.
What a great feeling it is to contribute a great and useful invention to society; knowing that you are somehow making a difference in the lives of others. The world is full of intelligent and crafty people who are constantly attempting to invent the next best thing. It is such a tragedy when creators are killed by their own creations though.
Here are 5 inventors killed by their own inventions:
These inventors gave their lives to their inventions in one way or another, along with so many others not noted here. It’s a dangerous life to always be creating gadgets and attempting to improve upon them.
Do you know of any other inventors killed by their own inventions?
Have you ever thought what would life be like without the internet? These days it’s hard to imagine the ‘unthinkable’ of society going offline. For many Americans, the Web has become an integral part of any standard means of communication. It might seem inconceivable that in 2015 there could still be Americans who don’t use the Internet — but they are out there. Today 15% of U.S. adults do not use the internet, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of survey data.
The size of this “anti-trend group” has changed little over the past three years, despite recent government and social service programs to encourage internet adoption. These remaining offline survivors are likely to be the hardest to reach. Here’s why.
In 2000 slightly below half of all Americans were offline. Today, mostly poorer, older rural and undereducated Americans, or about 37 million people, don’t use the Web. They have never done a Google search, and will probably never read this story.
The latest Pew Research analysis shows that internet non-adoption depends on various demographic variables.
Class-related gaps persist. Those living in households with an annual income under $30,000 a year are less likely to report internet usage. Around 20 percent of African Americans and 18 percent of Hispanics said they don’t use the Internet, compared with 14 percent of whites and 5 percent of English-speaking Asian Americans, Pew said. Among those who’ve never finished high school, a third never use the Web, as well as a quarter of adults living in rural areas.
The Internet has become the Archimedean point in our daily life. Almost nothing gets done without it nowadays and the US is an increasingly digital society.
Previous data from the Pew Research Internet Project illustrated America’s embrace of – and increasing reliance on – the internet since the 1990s. More than half of Americans admitted they would find the internet “very hard” to give up.
According to a 2013 Pew Research survey, American non-internet users said they did not go online mostly because they did not think the internet was relevant to their lives and they found it too difficult to use. Cost was also a barrier– 19% cited the expense of internet service or owning a computer. Since 2000, Pew has conducted 98 surveys on the topic.
Although the offline population has been shrinking for some groups – such as adults 65 and older and among those without a high school diploma – real structural challenges such as poverty and inequality are keeping part of the population unplugged.
Are you concerned about 15% of Americans still being offline? Share your views in the comments section below.
Aclima a firm that builds environmental sensors, is teaming up to turn Google Street View cars into mobile pollution sniffers.
Initial tests were conducted in Denver resulting in three Google Street View cars being equipped with hardware to measure harmful compounds in the atmosphere including nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) – air pollutants that have an impact on health and climate change.
The search engine giant it’s hunting for pollution in the air by equipping its Google Street View cars with a mobile sensing platform as part of a study being conducted by NASA and the EPA that’s focused on improving the collection of air quality data.
“We have a profound opportunity to understand how cities live and breathe in an entirely new way”, Aclima CEO Davida Herzl said in a statement. “With more than half of the world’s population now living in cities, environmental health is becoming increasingly important to quality of life.”
Latest reports by the UN World Health Organization (WHO) show that air pollution – both indoor and outdoor – kill some 7 million people across the globe every year, “making it the world’s largest single environmental health risk”, according to recent figures.
Furthermore, it is estimated that more than 1 billion people are exposed to outdoor air pollution annually. Urban air pollution in particular, is estimated to cost approximately 2% of GDP in developed countries and 5% in developing countries where rapid urbanisation has resulted in increasing pollution issues in major cities.
From the tick Amazon rainforest to the heights of Mount Everest, Google Street View is mapping our world with “360-degree panoramic views” and “locations on all seven continents”.
The goal now, is to introduce these mobile sensing platforms to communities anywhere Google Street View cars drive. The data will help inform local health studies and shape community planning decisions.
“Environmental air quality is an issue that affects everyone, especially those living in big cities”, said Karin Tuxen-Bettman, program director for Google Earth Outreach.
Reports unveiled that the system processed 150 million data points in 750 hours of drive time on everything from humidity levels to light intensity and air pollution.
The partnership between Aclima and Google has already worked on mapping indoor environments. The two companies have created a network across 21 Google offices around the globe to monitor levels of pollution and temperature – calculations aimed at improving workplace design. In the Fall, the experiments will move to San Francisco. Aclima and Google are partnering with communities and scientists to explore new applications.
What do you think of Google Street View cars being turned into pollution sniffers? Share you views in the comments section below.
With all the hubbub about Pluto and extraterrestrial planets, no one seems to be paying attention to the fingerpaint-esque pan-gender celebration of passion apparently limning its way across the surface of one of Saturn’s moons. Known as Tethys, the heavily cratered moon has red graffiti sketches all over it, baffling scientists. The photos of Tethys were snapped up by NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft, a major interplanetary program that arrived in Saturn’s system eleven years ago, in 2004. Cassini will carry on in Saturn’s system until 2017.
These strange scratches discovered on Saturn’s moon Tethys avoided scientists’ first meticulous gazes, when the first images of Tethys became available to NASA experts. Indeed, it wasn’t until they combined images with disparate filters–some green, others clear, a few UV and then also IR spectral filters–that the graffiti-like traces were caught.
The way they did it was by keeping their gazes (i.e. the researchers’) on highlighted anomalies of color webbing out across Tethys’ mad, wrinkly surface. They seemed indubitably the work of a master graffiti artist, “perhaps a Man from Saturn,” one man may have shouted, but then another shook his head in stolid disbelief, because these streaks would not be visible to human eyes; only with filters, may we see the red streaks.
This recent discovery is still a fresh mystery. Scientists and researchers alike have only opined an educated guess that may-haps the red arcs have been caused by ice on Tethys’ surface having been exposed to chemical impurities.
Still sounds like a robot could have graffitied the surface? Another hypothesis held that this could all just be an massive emission of gas coming out of Tethys’ surface.
More than how it got there, the very fact that the mystery formation is blatantly red confuses scientists. Nevertheless, scientists are doubling potential losses, and are already speaking of basing some of their understanding of the moon on this strange find.
But this isn’t the end of the story. Scientists fervently hold that a plenum of studies must follow this irregularity, that clearer pictures must be captured, that no means are to be spared to capture more images of Tethys, that no mental effort be stayed in the pursuit of understanding, when it comes to this Tethys. This is necessary because, to natural scientists, the presence of red lines generally indicates fractures on the moon’s surface, and the latests images inspiring this entire rodeo are not resolved enough to give merit to this usual conclusion.
This is also the first time any such phenomenon has been discovered on Saturn’s moons. There is a similar pattern one can trace resting on the Dione moon, but the other 62 moons have not a single hint of such colorful mosaic patterns.
As was mentioned, Cassini will carry on its mission with Saturn until 2017, until which time it will provide scientists with additional pictures hopefully solving more than creating mysteries becoming endemic of the Saturnian system. When its mission is finished, scientists will guide Cassini in an intentional free-fall into Saturn’s atmosphere, leaving its instruments active and transmitting for as long as possible, until it is eventually quelled by the immense pressure of Saturn’s ancient winds.
On Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, a fragment of an airplane wing that has washed ashore has prompted authorities to say a major lead has come in the case of the missing Malaysia Flight 370.
Over 16 months after the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished, a single piece of debris that was found by a cleaning crew on Wednesday has brought many emotions to the relatives of the missing passengers and to the world at large. The part, which is now believe to be a flap from the wing, was found on Reunion Island near Madagascar.
Investigators from Boeing have reviewed photos of the plane part and believe it to be from a Boeing 777. Of all of their 777s in the world, only one is reported missing at the time: MH370.
As boats and helicopters spread the search out over the sea around Reunion Island, local media outlets have reported another mysterious finding that has come ashore as what is believed to be the remains of a sea-battered suitcase. However, officials have not released any official comment on the discovery.
The part, which is between 6 to 8 feet long, is reported to be intact with no visible physical damage that would indicate fire or a possible impact.
The Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Warren Truss, released a statement in a news conference on Thursday that a number stamped on the airplane part may help identify to what plane the part belonged.
Truss believes the part can be considered “real evidence” that opens up the “possibility” that the airplane may be found; however, officials have been closely guarding their statements due to the highly sensitive nature of the missing plane.
Over 239 people are still missing since the plane lost contact on March 8, 2014, as it traveled on a routine route from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Beijing, China.
The fragment was shipped to Toulouse for a thorough investigation. The French authority that will investigate the accident, BEA, cannot yet confirm whether the fragment was in fact from the missing plane.
The Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, believes it is highly likely that the debris belongs to Malaysia Flight 370. In addition, Razak pointed out the location the airplane fragment washed ashore in was consistent to the drift analysis reports drafted in the initial searches for the aircraft.
In a statement from the press conference, Truss believes the possible positive identification of the aircraft may give some closure to the relatives of the passengers.
Many authorities leading the search also believe other debris may soon wash up in the same area in the coming days and weeks. Has Malaysia Flight 370 been found or is the plane and all of its passengers still somewhere deep in the sea? For now, the relatives, the world, and the answer must wait as investigators find out if MH370 may have resurfaced.
With the recent killing of Cecil the lion at the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe by US dentist Walter James Palmer of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, the question of whether African countries should ban trophy hunting in order to help save the endangered species living there is being called into question. Cecil the lion was known as a “national treasure,” to Zimbabwe, admired across the country for its beauty.
Zimbabwe officials say Cecil died a particularly gruesome death, as he was first shot with a crossbow, before he was killed 40 hours later with a gun. He was later skinned and beheaded.
The death of Cecil the lion has also put his 12 orphaned cubs at risk, as they will have no protection from rivaling adult males looking to dominate the pride. This, along with the recent killing of an endangered black rhino in Namibia by Texan hunter Corey Knowlton has put pressure on African countries to put an end to trophy hunting.
While conservationists are pushing for increased hunting regulation, several factors need to be acknowledged before beefing up regulations that are already in place, such as how African countries benefit financially from trophy hunting, and how ingrained the practice of hunting remains to many of their cultures.
Every year, hunters from around the world travel to Africa to kill thousands of animals, attracted to the rare and exotic creatures that live there exclusively, including the African elephant and black rhino. The goal of trophy hunting is to bag the biggest and most beautiful game to brag about later.
More than 23 African countries offer the chance to trophy hunt by issuing hunting permits for large sums of money, which pays for staff wages, professional hunters, setting up camp, trackers, and other accommodations. Some countries issue hunting fees depending on the species of animal chosen, and can vary depending on factors such as the animal’s origin and sex. Other countries such as those in South Africa lets hunters pay only for what they shoot, which is usually the cheapest option.
There’s no doubt about it—trophy hunting rakes in an enormous amount of capital for a large number of African countries. Charging incredible fees for big-game trophy hunting expeditions, with prices that can be upwards of $50,000 (the price of killing an elephant in South Africa), a large chunk of several of their countries’ economies depend on this source of income.
In Tanzania, the trophy hunting industry generates 12% of the country’s GDP—money that they use to pay for wages, and the maintenance of preserves (land that takes up 40% of the country’s land). Tanzania has figured out a way to do this, while still heavily regulating the trophy hunting industry, with the Wildlife Conservation Act and the National Park Act managing all hunting activity in the country. Many other African countries follow similar hunting policies, generating a combined total of $190 million from trophy hunting alone.
Many justify the practice of trophy hunting by claiming that their hunting of specific targets, chosen for their potential to harm the species as a whole, they are actually helping conservationist efforts. Such was the case with Corey Knowlton, who claims he was motivated to kill the aged black rhino as it proved a threat to younger rhinos. Knowlton recently spoke to CNN: “I hope people will look at it and say this was the turning point that got people to understand what it means to be a conservationist.”
Conservationists such as Jeffrey Flocken, regional director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare aren’t buying it, pointing to a huge lack of evidence that would support this way of justifying trophy hunting.
Flocken recently released an opinion piece on the issue, within it claiming “Killing endangered wildlife to save it is just wrong.” Other experts, including Professor Craig Packer, a lion expert at the University of Minnesota agree with this statement; “There is little evidence that hunting does much to conserve wildlife in Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique or much of West Africa.” This news comes as a response to a popular study done in which the increase of South Africa’s white rhino population was theoretically linked to regulated hunting. While some conservationists agree that well-managed hunting can be beneficial to a specie’s preservation, there remains no significant proof of this being the case.
Zambia recently overturned its decision to ban the hunting of lions and leopards on its lands—a move, according to the co-founder of anti-hunting group Lion Aid and evolutionary biologist Dr. Pieter Kat that “caved in to powerful hunting interests.” Even in many African countries that do implement heavy hunting regulations, governments are known to do relatively little to enforce them.
Far from helping preserve the species as a whole, the death of Cecil the lion has also brought about the likely deaths of his twelve cubs. According to the chairman of The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force Jonny Rodrigues, “When two males fight over a pride, the winner kills all the cubs and introduces his own bloodline.” Many Zimbabwe officials believe the cubs to already be dead, as Cecil was killed on July 1st, giving rival male lions quite some time to establish a new hierarchy.
Rodrigues added, “Letting nature take its course may be the most humane thing to do.”
