A pygmy blue whale. (Photo: Jason Isley/Getty Images)
Does the world’s largest animal have a pint-size variety?
Not exactly, but the population of blue whales living off Chile’s southern coast could be a slightly smaller version of their Antarctic neighbors, and that has scientists thinking they may have found a new subspecies of the cetacean.
But don’t be fooled: These so-called “pygmy blue whales” are only small if you’re comparing them with the 100-foot behemoths with which they share a name.
Still, the new findings—published in the journal Molecular Ecology on Thursday—should help researchers get closer to determining just how many types of blue whales exist in the world’s oceans, and that could make a big difference in understanding the best way to conserve the endangered species.
Researchers from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the Universidad Austral de Chile worked together on the study, comparing the genetic identify of 52 whales found off southern Chile with blue whales from Antarctica, northern Chile, and the eastern tropical Pacific.
While they didn’t find differences between the Chile groups and the eastern tropical groups, there were significant differences in gene sequences in all three populations compared with the Antarctic blue whales.
“The presence of two types of blue whales in Chile hopefully helps inform protection measures, either via spatial protections or threat mitigations for each that can be carried out locally and nationally, but also in a regional and international context,” Howard Rosenbaum, a Wildlife Conservation Society director and senior author of the study, said in an email.
The smaller blue whales found off southern Chile are similar in size to another subspecies of blue whales found off Australia, called B. m. brevicauda—which measures around 80 feet at maturity. That’s plenty big, but it still doesn’t touch the Antarctic blue whale, B. m. intermedia, which can grow up to 100 feet in length.
Researchers noted that little is known about the Southern Hemisphere blue whale population, and most historical data points come from whaling records. It wasn’t until a blue whale feeding and nursing ground was discovered off Chile’s southern coast in 2004 that scientists began to question whether there was more than one population of blue whales in the southeastern Pacific.
By the early 1900s, whalers had slaughtered more than 300,000 Antarctic blue whales, depleting the population to less than 1 percent of its historic number.
Since the International Whaling Commission’s 1966 moratorium on killing blue whales, the marine mammal has slowly recovered, and there are now 5,000 to 10,000 of the massive animals in the Southern Hemisphere and 3,000 to 4,500 in the Northern Hemisphere.
“Our study gives us crucial insights into the population structure of blue whales in the waters of Chile and will serve as an important stepping stone for further research,” said Rosenbaum. “The long-term goal of such work would be a network of marine protected areas designed to save the world's largest animal.
Watch this owl swim in Lake Michigan after being attacked by falcons
POSTED 11:42 AM, DECEMBER 2, 2014, BY ELYSE RUSSO [ Original Link ]
A Chicago area photographer and birder captured a most unusual sighting: An owl swimming in Lake Michigan.
Steve Spitzer was at Loyola Park Beach in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood when he saw something in the lake.
He met another birder who said it was an owl. The Great Horned Owl was forced down into Lake Michigan by two Peregrine Falcons.
Spitzer captured video and photos of the owl, but he didn’t take any of the falcon attack. He and others at the beach were busy trying to scare the falcons away.
“I’m a birder at heart,” he said.
Spitzer said bird rescue was called to the scene, but the owl flew away.
A male Acmon blue butterfly (Icaricia acmon). Vladimir Nabokov described the Icaricia genus in 1944. In a speculative moment in 1945, he came up with a sweeping hypothesis for the evolution the group of butterflies known as the Polyommatus blues, and 65 years later, DNA analysis has proved it correct.
Vladimir Nabokov may be known to most people as the author of classic novels like “Lolita” and “Pale Fire.” But even as he was writing those books, Nabokov had a parallel existence as a self-taught expert on butterflies. He was the curator of lepidoptera at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, and collected the insects across the United States. He published detailed descriptions of hundreds of species. And in a speculative moment in 1945, he came up with a sweeping hypothesis for the evolution of the butterflies he studied, a group known as the Polyommatus blues. He envisioned them coming to the New World from Asia over millions of years in a series of waves.
Few professional lepidopterists took these ideas seriously during Nabokov’s lifetime. But in the years since his death in 1977, his scientific reputation has grown. And over the past 10 years, a team of scientists has been applying gene-sequencing technology to his hypothesis about how Polyommatus blues evolved. On Tuesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, they reported that Nabokov was absolutely right.
“It’s really quite a marvel,” said Naomi Pierce of Harvard, a co-author of the paper.
A male Andean blue butterfly (Madeleinea koa). A new study shows that the ancestors of this species colonized the New World from Asia via Beringia 11 million years ago.
Nabokov inherited his passion for butterflies from his parents. When his father was imprisoned by the Russian authorities for his political activities, the 8-year-old Vladimir brought a butterfly to his cell as a gift. As a teenager, Nabokov went on butterfly-hunting expeditions and carefully described the specimens he caught, imitating the scientific journals he read in his spare time. Had it not been for the Russian Revolution, which forced his family into exile in 1919, Nabokov said that he might have become a full-time lepidopterist.
In his European exile, Nabokov visited butterfly collections in museums. He used the proceeds of his second novel, “King, Queen, Knave,” to finance an expedition to the Pyrenees, where he and his wife, Vera, netted over a hundred species. The rise of the Nazis drove Nabokov into exile once more in 1940, this time to the United States. It was there that Nabokov found his greatest fame as a novelist. It was also there that he delved deepest into the science of butterflies.
Nabokov spent much of the 1940s dissecting a confusing group of species called Polyommatus blues. He developed forward-thinking ways to classify the butterflies based on differences in their genitalia. He argued that what were thought to be closely related species were actually only distantly related.
A male blue butterfly of the genus Lycaeides. The study shows that the ancestors of this species colonized the New World from Asia through Beringia approximately 2.4 million years ago.
At the end of a 1945 paper on the group, he mused on how they had evolved. He speculated that they originated in Asia, moved over the Bering Strait, and moved south all the way to Chile.
Allowing himself a few literary flourishes, Nabokov invited his readers to imagine “a modern taxonomist straddling a Wellsian time machine.” Going back millions of years, he would end up at a time when only Asian forms of the butterflies existed. Then, moving forward again, the taxonomist would see five waves of butterflies arriving in the New World.
Nabokov conceded that the thought of butterflies making a trip from Siberia to Alaska and then all the way down into South America might sound far-fetched. But it made more sense to him than an unknown land bridge spanning the Pacific. “I find it easier to give a friendly little push to some of the forms and hang my distributional horseshoes on the nail of Nome rather than postulate transoceanic land-bridges in other parts of the world,” he wrote.
When “Lolita” made Nabokov a star in 1958, journalists were delighted to discover his hidden life as a butterfly expert. A famous photograph of Nabokov that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post when he was 66 is from a butterfly’s perspective. The looming Russian author swings a net with rapt concentration. But despite the fact that he was the best-known butterfly expert of his day and a Harvard museum curator, other lepidopterists considered Nabokov a dutiful but undistinguished researcher. He could describe details well, they granted, but did not produce scientifically important ideas.
Only in the 1990s did a team of scientists systematically review his work and recognize the strength of his classifications. Dr. Pierce, who became a Harvard biology professor and curator of lepidoptera in 1990, began looking closely at Nabokov’s work while preparing an exhibit to celebrate his 100th birthday in 1999. She was captivated by his idea of butterflies coming from Asia. “It was an amazing, bold hypothesis,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Oh, my God, we could test this.’ ”
The study took eight years and involved collecting samples from Canada to Patagonia. Roger Vila, one of the authors of the study, is shown prospecting in the Cajamarca region of Peru.
To do so, she would need to reconstruct the evolutionary tree of blues, and estimate when the branches split. It would have been impossible for Nabokov to do such a study on the anatomy of butterflies alone. Dr. Pierce would need their DNA, which could provide more detail about their evolutionary history.
Working with American and European lepidopterists, Dr. Pierce organized four separate expeditions into the Andes in search of blues. Back at her lab at Harvard, she and her colleagues sequenced the genes of the butterflies and used a computer to calculate the most likely relationships between them. They also compared the number of mutations each species had acquired to determine how long ago they had diverged from one another.
A greenish blue Icaricia saepiolus waiting for the sun on a dandelion. Its ancestors crossed from Asia to the Americas through Beringia nine million years ago.
There were several plausible hypotheses for how the butterflies might have evolved. They might have evolved in the Amazon, with the rising Andes fragmenting their populations. If that were true, the species would be closely related to one another.
The study confirms Vladimir Nabokov's biogeographic hypothesis for the colonization of the New World by Polyommatus butterflies. They crossed from Asia to the Americas through Beringia at least five times in the last 11 million years.
But that is not what Dr. Pierce found. Instead, she and her colleagues found that the New World species shared a common ancestor that lived about 10 million years ago. But many New World species were more closely related to Old World butterflies than to their neighbors. Dr. Pierce and her colleagues concluded that five waves of butterflies came from Asia to the New World — just as Nabokov had speculated.
“By God, he got every one right,” Dr. Pierce said. “I couldn’t get over it — I was blown away.”
Dr. Pierce and her colleagues also investigated Nabokov’s idea that the butterflies had come over the Bering Strait. The land surrounding the strait was relatively warm 10 million years ago, and has been chilling steadily ever since. Dr. Pierce and her colleagues found that the first lineage of Polyommatus blues that made the journey could survive a temperature range that matched the Bering climate of 10 million years ago. The lineages that came later are more cold-hardy, each with a temperature range matching the falling temperatures.
Nabokov’s taxonomic horseshoes turn out to belong in Nome after all.
"What a great paper," said James Mallet, an expert on butterfly evolution at University College London. "It's a fitting tribute to the great man to see that the most modern methods that technology can deliver now largely support his systematic arrangement."
A group of Polyommatus blue butterflies gathering in humid soil. The study shows that Beringia has served as a biological corridor for their dispersal from Asia into the New World, as is the case with other animals, including humans.
Dr. Pierce says she believes Nabokov would have been greatly pleased to be so vindicated, and points to one of his most famous poems, “On Discovering a Butterfly.” The 1943 poem begins:
I found it and I named it, being versed
in taxonomic Latin; thus became
godfather to an insect and its first
describer — and I want no other fame.
“He felt that his scientific work was standing for all time, and that he was just a player in a much bigger enterprise,” said Dr. Pierce. “He was not known as a scientist, but this certainly indicates to me that he knew what it’s all about.”
國民黨政權於一九四九年底流亡到台灣，是舉世皆知的常識。世界上所有敘述這個事實的英語著作，如果不是用exile就是用escape來形容。這不是流亡、逃亡之意嗎？試看最具權威的大英百科全書（Britannica encyclopedia）如何介紹蔣介石，原文如下：「soldier and statesman, head of the Nationalist government in China from 1928 to 1949, and subsequently head of the Chinese Nationalist government in exile on Taiwan」後面一句講得夠明白，蔣介石是「流亡在台灣之中華民國的領袖」。
World Health Organization scientists are suspected of accepting secret bribes from vaccine manufacturers to influence the U.N. organization's H1N1 pandemic declaration, according to Danish and Swedish newspapers.
Meanwhile, pharmaceutical profits from swine-flu-related drugs have soared – with earnings between $10 billion and $15 billion in 2009, investment bank JPMorgan estimates.
The world was gripped with fears of swine flu as the alert increased from Phase 5 to Phase 6, the highest level. Immediately, pharmaceutical companies began working to develop vaccines, and countries tailored their responses to address the situation.
Danish newspaper Information reported that when Chan raised the level of pandemic alert on June 11, the declaration meant substantial economic benefits for the pharmaceutical industry – especially since many countries have contracts with major drug companies and are required to purchase vaccines in the event of a pandemic. Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet echoed Information's report.
"Many of the apparently impartial researchers the WHO uses, however, are paid by the companies that produce vaccines," states a translated version of the Information article, "Strong lobbying behind WHO resolution on mass vaccination."
One expert in a WHO H1N1 advisory group, Dr. Albert Osterhaus, has been subject to a Dutch government investigation. The government convened a crisis meeting after an article in Science magazine indicated that Osterhaus has financial interests in several pharmaceutical companies.
Osterhaus, known as "Dr. Flu," is the head of the department of virology at the Erasmus Medical Center, University of Rotterdam. According to a European Commission Research website, Osterhaus is co-founder of two biotech companies and promotes vaccines as solutions for pandemics.
Another expert who advises WHO on vaccines, Dr. Frederick Hayden, is described as a flu-research coordinator from the Wellcome Trust in London.
However, according to the report, Hayden also serves as a "paid adviser" for pharmaceutical companies Roche, RW Johnson, SmithKline Beecham and Glaxo Wellcome.
WHO expert Dr. Arnold Monto is also purportedly a paid consultant for MedImmune (a company that produces nasal flu vaccine), Glaxo Wellcome and ViroPharma. However, WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts never divulged those ties, according to the report.
The newspaper also states that numerous pharmaceutical companies maintain an active presence during WHO advisory group meetings, with representatives listed as "observers."
Professor Tom Jefferson, epidemiologist at the Cochrane Center in Rome, told Information he believes the researchers' dual roles are problematic, and he noted the WHO's emphasis on drugs rather than proper hygiene habits.
"The WHO's latest recommendation on the control of pandemic influenza has frequent washing of hands mentioned twice," he said. "Vaccines and antivirals are, however, mentioned 24 and 18 times. Why would an international public-health agency focus on much more expensive interventions, such as vaccines and medication, when it is not proven that they work?"
Jefferson said washing one's hands is the only proven method of flu prevention.
Wolf Dieter Ludwig, head of the drug commission of the German Medical Association, told Der Spiegel he has no doubt pharmaceutical companies have been seeking to capitalize off what he called a "nonexistent threat."
WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told Information it's natural to allow representatives of the pharmaceutical industry to participate in WHO meetings.
"Everybody has something to contribute in this process – industry, [nongovernmental organizations] and professional players – so we can gather all information," he said. "They cannot vote. They have no influence on the outcome, and they can only speak when they are asked. We make vaccine recommendations, so we need knowledge about what is required to produce a vaccine. Only the manufacturers have that knowledge."
According to the report, WHO does not publicize information about advisers' financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
"All staff must sign the declaration of conflicts of interest, so we are clear about their background," Hartl said. "But again, Frederick Hayden is the best influenza virologist in the world, so if you want to know how influenza behaves, you ask Fred Hayden."
Asked why WHO doesn't publish the advisers' financial ties to drug companies, he replied, "I'm not sure why we didn't publish it. I can't answer that. … It is possible that we will look at a code of disclosure of financial information, but I cannot promise anything."
He continued, "WHO has a system that guarantees independence. … We do not let anything or anyone influence us."
Louise Voller, journalist at the Danish daily and co-author of the report, told Russia Today, "The biggest problem seems to be that we don't know enough. There's not enough transparency on financial disclosure on the expert groups used by WHO. ... Scientists who appear to be independent are also hired consultants working for the same pharmaceutical companies who produce the vaccines. This is clearly an issue that needs to be taken care of."
Voller said she does not expect that the WHO will publish the financial disclosures on its experts unless public pressure is put on the organization.
Asked whether any solid investigations are being conducted to explore the allegations, she replied, "Not currently. I don't think so. ... [I]t has to be public what is going on in these meetings and what is going on in these expert groups. Who are the people working for WHO? And who else are they working for?"
According to Voice of America, Keiji Fakuda, WHO director general on pandemic influenza, refuted claims that WHO is in collusion with the pharmaceutical industry. He also noted that 150 million doses of H1N1 vaccine have been distributed in 40 countries.
Meanwhile, WHO reports the global H1N1 death toll at 8,768 as of Dec. 4.
HONG KONG - Taiwan’s position as a de facto independent state seems to be morphing very slowly toward the “one country, two systems” status of Hong Kong. The process is not irreversible but the sentiments of those of mainland origin in the governing Nationalist Party, along with the self-interest of business groups and a widespread sense of economic vulnerability are all pushing the island toward accommodation with Beijing.
The trend could mean an erosion in the support Taiwan gets, albeit erratically, from the United States and Japan.
The most striking evidence of a desire to please Beijing — at the expense of the liberal values which have gained Taiwan much praise in recent years — was the denial of entry to the exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer. This was done in the name of “national interest,” apparently linked to the finalization, expected soon, of a memorandum of understanding on cross-strait financial links.
For sure, the memorandum would be a major advance, enabling banks in particular to escape the confines of Taiwan, with its low growth and surplus savings, for the fast-growing mainland. And it would bring more mainland capital to local stocks and property. But the government of President Ma Ying-jeou may have forgotten that Taiwan’s national interest as an independent state, albeit one that may one day merge with the mainland, sometimes requires sacrifices. The degree of autonomy that Rebiya Kadeer has been seeking for Uighurs is a fraction of that enjoyed by Taiwan or even Hong Kong.
There is real benefit in increasing cross-straits financial links. Banks have much to gain by being able to service clients in Taiwan with business on the mainland. Cross-straits links may attract service industries to Taiwan that would otherwise go to Hong Kong. Mainland tourism is also an unqualified plus.
But Taiwan seems to be talking itself into believing that it is even more dependent on the mainland than need be the case. The island would be a more attractive place for foreign business if it removed the many restrictions that exist to protect local businesses, or stem simply from bureaucracy and outdated rules. Tax issues also tend to keep business offshore while not preventing a huge outflow of capital. The Ma government has made progress on these issues, but they get scant attention compared to cross-straits ones.
It is easy to blame a lackluster economy on being unable to take full advantage of the mainland. But in reality, Taiwan is a mature economy with minimal growth in its work force. Like Japan, its problems lie with an inefficient domestic services sector, not with an inventive export-manufacturing one.
Dependence on China is often overstated. While 40 percent of Taiwan’s exports go there, more than half are components for globally traded items like laptops and cellphones made by Taiwanese companies and then re-exported from China. The dependence is self-imposed for profit reasons, which may be shifting as mainland costs rise. There are alternatives.
Worrying too for friends of Taiwan’s liberal democracy is the vengeance being meted out to the opposition by powerful supporters of the governing Nationalist Party, or KMT. Former president Chen Shui-bian was found guilty of corruption and his conduct has left the opposition Democratic Progressive Party demoralized and frustrated. But given the pervasiveness of money politics and the past reputation of the Nationalists for corruption, the life sentence for Chen is extreme. Now, in the name of fighting corruption, there is talk of a witch-hunt against other members of the Chen administration. To some this smacks of an attempt by pro-unification elements to please Beijing by demonizing Chen, who supported independence and who suffered much in the cause of breaking the KMT’s authoritarian hold on power.
None of this is likely to help Taiwan’s relations with its main supporter, the United States. Chen upset a natural ally in George W. Bush by needlessly provoking Beijing in an attempt to score political points at home. Now the KMT seems to have gone to the other extreme. Taiwan has long disappointed Washington with unwillingness to spend money on arms. Now it may sense a lack of willingness to pay an economic price for the principles of independence and liberalism it claims to stand for. President Ma remains well-regarded abroad, but his grip on the KMT is uncertain. Taiwan lacks a strategic view of itself and how to balance relations with the Chinese mainland, the United States and the global economy with liberal democracy and de facto independence.
全球安全網站(GlobalSecurity.org)在五月十一日發表的資深研究員史奈德(Scott A. Snyder)的文章〈臺灣逐漸惡化的戰略地位與兩岸關係〉(Taiwan's Deteriorating Strategic Position and Cross-Strait Relations)，就已經表示，儘管兩岸關係改善、經濟合作增加，但在中共持續擴軍的情況下，臺灣的戰略地位卻日益惡化。臺灣同時需要美國持續供應武器以及在政治上的支持，才能保有必要的空間及政治力量，而不受制於中共。
Vladimir Nabokov may be known to most people as the author of classic novels like “Lolita” and “Pale Fire.” But even as he was writing those books, Nabokov had a parallel existence as a self-taught expert on butterflies.
台灣原本不屬中華民國，不信可看中華民國憲法前身《
