Category: Environment/nature
Red-cockaded woodpeckers, by Earl Lincoln Poole, from Harold Bailey's Birds of Virginia, 1913; via Wikipedia Commons._________________________________________________________________________________ North Carolina landowners are clearcutting pine forests to make sure those pesky red-cockaded woodpeckers don't set up shop, according to this depressing, distressing report in today's Times. BOILING SPRING LAKES, N.C., Sept. 23 (AP) — Over the past six months, landowners here have been clear-cutting thousands of trees to keep them from becoming homes for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. The chain saws started in February, when the federal Fish and Wildlife Service put Boiling Spring Lakes on notice that rapid development threatened to...
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Posted by David Dobbs at 9:44 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Environment/nature
Nature reporter Declan Butler, who has done some of best reporting on avian flu and (separately) the use of the internet as a means of communicating science, has updated his superb Google Earth avian flu maps to use Google Earth's new time series function. The resulting maps are both beautiful and even more informative and striking than before. The dynamics of the flu's spread are more clear, and the time series highlights the dynamic nature of this virus, particularly the way the flu has reappeared in some places, flaring up again — an important aspect that's otherwise easy to overlook.
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Posted by David Dobbs at 10:39 AM • •
Category: Brains and minds
W.A. Mozart -- just another hard-working genius ___________________________________________ A few hours ago I received this email: your article in "new scientist" sept 16-22 06 is pure B S . you should dedicate it to the extreme liberal intelligensia. The writer, one Kenneth Rubin (nice meeting you, Mr. Rubin) refers to a New Scientist feature I wrote about genius, talent, and expertise (subscription required -- though you can get a 4-week one for $4.95), which was just published today. Mr. Rubin didn't elaborate, so I can't say what his particular complaint is. (As a critique, Mr. Rubin's "B S," though...
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Posted by David Dobbs at 9:48 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: Brains and minds
I opened my feature on mirror neurons for Scientific American Mind by telling how my son Nicholas imitated me sticking out my tongue in his first hour. I regret I can offer you no film of that. Thanks to PLOS Biology, however, I can now offer you videos of a baby macaque monkey essentially doing the same -- that is, imitating lip-smacking and sticking-out-of-the-tongue -- in these video clips from "Neonatal Imitation in Rhesus Macaques" in PLOS Biology. Monkey see, monkey do. On the left, imitation of mouth-opening; on the right, of "tongue protrusion" ______________________________________________ The photos above (not much,...
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Posted by David Dobbs at 10:32 PM • 2 Comments •
Author and journalist 
