Happy 80th Birthday, Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall holds a baby Cebus capucinus monkey during a 2013 visit to a primate rescue center in Chile.Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

On April 3, one week from today, Dr. Jane Goodall, the world-renowned chimpanzee expert and conservationist, will turn 80.

In advance of this milestone birthday, we all have a chance to thank Goodall for her lifelong work on behalf of chimpanzees and other wildlife.

As a scientist, I have found Goodall's long-term data from Gombe, Tanzania, on chimpanzee social ties, intelligence and felt emotion to be incredibly significant to my understanding of what it means to be human. That these other apes solve problems with tools they create, feel deeply connected to each other and can express a range of emotions — from kind compassion to violent brutality — tells us how much we share with these closest of all (along with bonobos) living relatives.

Of all the videos Goodall and her associates have created from Gombe over the decades, my favorite remains the waterfall video. In this two-and-a-half minute clip, we see the chimpanzees' "rhythmic dance" in and around water, and hear Goodall argue for their sense of "wonder and awe."

Waterfall Displays from the Jane Goodall Institute on Vimeo.

We diverge from chimpanzees too, of course. Prime examples include our expressions of wonder and awe through elaborated language, as well as through the complex processes associated with highly developed science and/or organized religion.

Yet it is the similarities between our two species that move me profoundly and underscore an urgent need to protect our next of kin wherever they may live.

On a personal note, I would add that the best part for me of talking with Goodall — three times over the years, once each in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and here at the College of William and Mary — was sharing in her knowledge of, and compassion for, animals of all shapes and sizes. Listen, for instance, to Goodall explain why she is a vegetarian in a video on her website.

By no means am I a close friend of Goodall's. I do believe, though, that I can successfully deliver this post to her attention.

So, with that in mind, have you been inspired by hearing Goodall speak? By reading her books? Or watching her documentary videos? How about through participation in her Roots and Shootsprogram for children? However she may have inspired you, please consider recounting your experience below in the comments section.

That way, together we may thank Dr. Goodall for her innovative science and outreach and wish her a very happy, healthy 80th birthday.

Barbara's most recent book on animals will be released in paperback in April. You can keep up with what she is thinking on Twitter: 

ORIGINAL: NPR

by BARBARA J. KING

March 27, 2014

IBM Brings Watson to Africa for Project Lucy

Using cognitive systems to tackle a continent’s grand challenges

Lucy is the name given to the earliest known human descendant, whose remains were discovered in Africa 40 years ago. Today, IBM Watson, the first cognitive computing system, is coming to Africa as part of a 10-year, $100 million initiative to address the fast-growing continent's greatest business and societal challenges. With "Project Lucy", IBM researchers in Africa, together with their business and academic partners, will use Watson and related cognitive technologies to learn and discover insights from Big Data and develop commercially viable solutions to Africa’s grand challenges in healthcare, education, water and sanitation, human mobility and agriculture.

"In the last decade, Africa has been a tremendous growth story, yet the continent's challenges, stemming from population growth, water scarcity, disease, low agricultural yield and other factors are impediments to inclusive economic growth," said Kamal Bhattacharya, director, IBM Research - Africa.

"With the ability to learn from emerging patterns and discover new correlations, Watson's cognitive capabilities hold enormous potential in Africa - helping it to achieve in the next two decades what today's developed markets have achieved over two centuries."

To get the big picture of these challenges and opportunities, IBM asked people from every African country to send in photos of their environments. The response was overwhelming: more than 1,200 photos from 930 participants tell a diverse technology and innovation story. The slideshow below is a selection that-illustrates this diversity and the mission of IBM Research – Africa. Contest winners will be named on February 28, 2014.

Nairobi is a city hard at work 24 hours every day. It is obvious when you look at the city at night from any of the vantage points. I shot this from the KICC helipad one night. Seven out of the world's 10 fastest growing economies will be African nations over the next ten years; Nairobi is rapidly emerging as one of Africa's business and technology hubs. Photo Mutua Matheka, Kenya City Lights.

ORIGINAL: IBM Research

Video: Fish leaps to catch birds on the wing

The waters of the African lake seem calm and peaceful. A few migrant swallows flit near the surface. Suddenly, leaping from the water, a fish grabs one of the famously speedy birds straight out of the air.

Les Gibbon/Alamy. An African tigerfish caught on the Lower Zambezi River.

Source: Nature (see link below) 

“The whole action of jumping and catching the swallow in flight happens so incredibly quickly that after we first saw it, it took all of us a while to really fully comprehend what we had just seen,” says Nico Smit, director of the Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management at North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa.

After the images did sink in, he adds, “the first reaction was one of pure joy, because we realized that we were spectators to something really incredible and unique”.

This is the first confirmed record of a freshwater fish preying on birds in flight, the team reports in the Journal of Fish Biology1. Rumours of such behaviour by the African tigerfish (Hydrocynus vittatus), which has been reported as reaching one metre in length, have circulated since the 1940s. But Smit says that his team was “never really convinced by the anecdotal reports”. So, when they set out to study of the migration and habitat use of these animals in a South African lake in the Mapungubwe National Park, near the border with Botswana and Zimbabwe, they were not necessarily looking for fish flying out of the water.

Nevertheless, during their time at the lake, the researchers saw as many as 20 successful fish strikes on barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) every day. These ranged from pursuits by fish at the surface, followed by leaps, to direct attacks from deeper water.

Smit says that this remarkable behaviour has been under the radar until now because the study of freshwater fish in Africa is very limited. “We hope that our findings will really focus the attention on the importance of basic freshwater research, and specifically fish behaviour,” he adds.

    Nature
    doi:10.1038/nature.2014.14496

References
    O’Brien, G. C., Jacobs, F., Evans, S. W. & Smit, N. J. J. Fish Biol. 84, 263–266 (2014).

SOURCE: NATURE

Tigerfish swallows swallows after grabbing them out of the air over African lake.

Daniel Cressey

09 January 2014

ORIGINAL: Science Dump
by Jur
01/12/2014

Palm-Size Fossil Resets Primates’ Clock, Scientists Say

ORIGINAL: NYTimes

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

June 5, 2013

A nearly complete skeleton of a tiny, ancient primate — one that weighed no more than an ounce, had a tail longer than its body and would fit in the palm of your hand — is the earliest well-preserved fossil primate ever found, dating back some 55 million years and dialing back the fossil record for primates by an impressive eight million years, a research team declared on Wednesday.

An artist's interpretation of a tiny primate that is thought to be the earliest known ancestor of nocturnal primates living today in Southeast Asia. Xijun Ni/Chinese Academy of Sciences

The finding adds weight to the evidence that primates originated in Asia — not Africa — and that they emerged relatively soon after the extinction of the dinosaurs, which happened about 66 million years ago.

The older date brings scientists closer to pinpointing a pivotal event in primate and human evolution: the divergence between the lineage leading to anthropoids — which include modern monkeys, apes and humans — and the one leading to tarsiers.

In a report published in the journal Nature, an international team of paleontologists led by Xijun Ni of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing said that the skeleton, recovered from an ancient lake bed in Hubei Province in central China, set a new benchmark for the time that primates started roaming the planet.

The primate skeleton belongs to a species never seen before, one the researchers identified as the earliest known ancestor of tarsiers — a type of small, nocturnal primate living today in Southeast Asian forests. This unprepossessing early primate was even smaller than today’s smallest primate, the pygmy mouse lemur of Madagascar.

Dr. Ni said in a statement that the findings represent “the first time that we have a reasonably complete picture of a primate close to the divergence,” calling it “a big step forward in our efforts to chart the course of the earliest phases of primate and human evolution.”

K. Christopher Beard, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and an author of the journal report, said: “We’ve heard of the ‘out of Africa’ theory of human evolution, but that’s recent history. So there may now be the ‘into Africa’ problem.”

How and when did some primates finally make it to Africa, which was an island until as recently as 16 million years ago, to set in motion the emergence of the human species?

There is evidence that 38 million years ago, some primates had apparently crossed open water to colonize the African continent.

The fossil from Hubei does not answer the question of how that happened, but it does give paleontologists plenty to work on for years to come. The skeleton “differs radically from any other primate, living or fossil, known to science,” Dr. Beard said. “It looks like an odd hybrid, with the feet of a small monkey, the arms, legs and teeth of a very primitive primate and a primitive skull bearing surprisingly small eyes.”

Some of the skeleton’s anatomical characteristics resemble in miniature those of its tarsier lineage. Its head and trunk were less than four inches long, the tail a little more than five inches long. Some characteristics, like the monkeylike heel and ankle, appear to reaffirm the close tarsier connection to anthropoids, which is why the species has been named Archicebus achilles, a reference to the best-known heel bone in Western culture.

The skeleton was found by a farmer a decade ago in a rock near the course of the modern Yangtze River. But it took years of analysis to figure out how to classify the surprising-looking creature. Even today, not all researchers agree. For clues, the researchers looked to the previously oldest primate fossil specimen, a skeleton from Germany that was named in 2009 as Darwinius masillae. But the team concluded that the skeleton from Hubei, which is much smaller, belonged to an entirely separate branch of the primate family tree.

Daniel L. Gebo, a member of the team from Northern Illinois University, said the foot bones “made us stop and think, what is this thing?” Finally, the researchers decided the weight of evidence favored inclusion of the skeleton on the tarsier family tree.

They also agreed that findings strongly supported Asia, not Africa, as the most likely continent of primate origins. No known primate fossils of such antiquity have been found in Africa, which the anthropoids eventually did colonize, evolving into Homo sapiens only about 200,000 years ago.

Dr. Beard imagined that the creature, being so small and metabolically active, must have spent its days (it was not nocturnal, as its tarsier descendants are) as “a kind of frenetic animal, anxious and agile, climbing and leaping around” in the humid tropical world it inhabited. “Amazing,” he said, pausing. “A planet of the apes before there were any apes.”

The world inhabited by Archicebus achilles, 55 million years ago, was very different from ours. Non-avian dinosaurs had died out, and mammals were coming into their own. The entire planet was a natural greenhouse, with life-changing tropical or subtropical rain forests growing everywhere and palm trees as far north as Alaska. Philip D. Gingerich, a paleontologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who is an authority on primate evolution but was not involved in this research, said in an e-mail that it was “less clear to me that the Archicebus specimen” belonged in the tarsier lineage. Dr. Gingerich agreed, however, that the new skeleton was close to the divergence between the anthropoid and tarsier branches of primates. He said he expected further research to “almost certainly yield additional important information about the skull and dentition, the forelimbs and the hind limbs.”

Another member of the group analyzing the new skeleton, John J. Flynn, curator of fossil mammals at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, said the research took 10 years to complete because “we applied rigorous testing to all our ideas and hypotheses — convincing all our own collaborators first.”

“Some may want to take a shot at us,” Dr. Flynn said, but the analysis involved “intensive international cooperation behind the scenes at several museums.”

Expert: Rhinos extinct in Mozambique

ORIGINAL: Yahoo

By MICHELLE FAUL

Thu, May 2, 2013

The vanishing rhino

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JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Mozambique's rhinoceros population was wiped out more than a century ago by big game hunters. Reconstituted several years ago, it has again been driven to extinction, or to the brink of extinction, by poachers seeking their horns for sale in Asia.

A leading rhino expert told The Associated Press that the last rhino in the southern African nation has been killed. The warden in charge of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park — the only place where the horned behemoths lived in Mozambique — also says poachers have wiped out the last of the rhinos. Mozambique's conservation director believes a few may remain.

Elephants also could become extinct in Mozambique soon, the warden of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, Antonio Abacar, told AP. He said game rangers have been aiding poachers, and 30 of the park's 100 rangers will appear in court soon.

"We caught some of them red-handed while directing poachers to a rhino area," Abacar said.

A game ranger arrested for helping poachers in Mozambique's northern Niassa Game Reserve said on Mozambican Television TVM last week that he was paid 2,500 meticais (about $80) to direct poachers to areas with elephants and rhinos. Game rangers are paid between 2,000 and 3,000 meticais ($64 to $96) a month.

While guilty rangers will lose their jobs, the courts serve as little deterrent to the poachers: killing wildlife and trading in illegal rhino horn and elephant tusks are only misdemeanors in Mozambique.

"Their legal system is far from adequate and an individual found guilty is given a slap on the wrist and then they say 'OK. Give me my horn back,'" said Michael H. Knight, chairman of the African Rhino Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Species Survival Commission.

A meeting of the group in February reported there might, possibly, be one white rhino left in Mozambique and no black rhinos at all, Knight said.

According to Abacar: "We have already announced the extinction of the rhino population in Limpopo National Park."

But Bartolomeu Soto, director of Mozambique's transfrontier conservation unit, told the AP "We believe we still have rhinos, though we don't know how many."

Mozambican news reports have said the last 15 rhinos in the park were slaughtered in the past month, but park officials said those reports were wrong. Soto said the misunderstanding had arisen over Abacar's statement to journalists that he had not seen a rhino in the three months since he was put in charge of the large park.

The only official figure available for rhino deaths is that 17 rhino carcasses were found in the park in 2010, Soto said. He said officials believe poaching must be taking place because rhino horn and elephant tusks carried by Asian smugglers are regularly seized at Mozambique's ports, although at least some of the contraband could be from animals killed by Mozambican poachers in neighboring South Africa. This week a person was arrested at the airport of the capital, Maputo, in possession of nine rhino horns, Soto said.

The price of rhino horn has overtaken the price of gold as demand has burgeoned in Asian countries, mainly China and Vietnam, where consumers wrongly believe that the horn — made of the same substance as fingernails — has powerful healing properties. Chinese traditional medicine prescribes it for everything from typhoid, infant convulsions and fever to an antidote for poison and to relieve arthritis and cure possessions by the devil. Syndicates from Vietnam, China, South Korea and Thailand have been identified as being involved in the trafficking.

Knight said rhinos first became extinct in Mozambique around the turn of the last century, in the age of the big white hunters, when the animals also nearly disappeared in South Africa, which is now home to 90 percent of Africa's estimated 20,000 white rhinos and 4,880 black rhinos.

In 2002, leaders of Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe agreed to establish a transfrontier park straddling their borders and covering some 35,000 square kilometers (13,514 square miles) of the best established wildlife areas in southern Africa with South Africa's famed Kruger National Park and Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou National Park. It is funded by several international wildlife organizations and the European Union.

Soto said some 5,000 animals of various species were translocated from South Africa to Mozambique, including the first 12 rhinos to roam in Mozambique in a century.

In 2006, South Africa removed some 50 kilometers (30 miles) of fence between Kruger and Limpopo National Park. Soto said the entire 200 kilometers (125 miles) of fence was not removed because Mozambique still is working to resettle some 6,000 people living in the park.

A second phase was to include two other Mozambican parks, allowing the transfrontier park to extend over 100,000 square kilometers (39,000 sq. miles) that would make it "the world's largest animal kingdom," according to the South African Peace Parks Foundation.

Those plans now are in danger, as is the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park. Knight said South African officials are even discussing rebuilding their fence with Mozambique.

South African officials say their country has lost 273 rhinos to poachers so far this year. They say most have been killed by Mozambicans who cross into Kruger Park. Poachers killed 668 rhinos in South Africa last year.

The slaughter continues with the number of deaths increasing even though South Africa has declared war on rhino poachers and for two years has deployed soldiers and police in Kruger, a vast park which is the size of Israel.

Soto said Mozambique's government has been working since 2009 on a comprehensive reform of environmental laws involving consultations with all stakeholders. He said he expects the draft legislation to be presented to parliament soon. It includes criminalizing the shooting of wildlife and would impose mandatory prison sentences on offenders.

But it will come too late to save the last of the rhinos in Mozambique.

___

Associated Press writer Emmanuel Camillo contributed to this report from Maputo, Mozambique

Happy birthday, Dian Fossey (Jan. 16)

ORIGINAL: Gorilla Fund

January 15, 2013

Dian Fossey. Photo: Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund

January 16, 2013, would have been Dr. Dian Fossey’s 81st birthday. The anniversary of her untimely death on Dec. 26, 1985, occurred only a few weeks earlier, so it is heartening at the start of a new year to remember how much she was able to accomplish.

Fossey developed a love for animals at an early age. She joined her high school horseback riding team, worked on a ranch in Montana one summer, and even considered becoming a veterinarian. Instead, she earned a degree in occupational therapy and worked at a hospital in Kentucky, where she lived on a farm and helped the owners with animal care. A friend’s visit to Africa inspired her to dream of visiting that continent some day – a dream she pursued with determination until the opportunity finally arose. After taking out a bank loan to supplement her savings, she set off for Africa in 1963.

During this first trip to Africa, where she visited several countries, she met with the great paleontologist Dr. Louis Leakey at his archeological site in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Leakey told Dian about Jane Goodall’s work with chimpanzees, and the importance of long-term field studies of great apes. Later, in Uganda, a hotel owner who was an advocate for gorilla conservation recommended that she contact Joan and Alan Root, who were photographing the mountain gorillas for a documentary. The Roots allowed Dian to camp behind their cabin and took her into the forest to search for gorillas. As it is for so many, her first sight of mountain gorillas was a life-changing experience for Fossey, sealing her determination to return to study them.

"It was their individuality combined with the shyness of their behavior that remained the most captivating impression of this first encounter with the greatest of the great apes. I left Kabara with reluctance but with never a doubt that I would, somehow, return to learn more about the gorillas of the misted mountains," Fossey wrote in Gorillas in the Mist.

Three years later, Fossey set up camp on the Congo side of the Virungas and began to study the gorillas, until a civil war forced her to leave. Refusing to give up her dream, she started over on the Rwanda side, founding the Karisoke Research Center and later the Digit Fund, which is now the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. In the 1970s, she spent four years traveling between Africa and Cambridge University to earn her Ph.D., and toward the end of her life finished what would become a best-selling book (and then a movie), Gorillas in the Mist.

The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund continues her work of daily gorilla protection and study – now in the Congo as well – and has expanded its mission to include studying other species that share the gorillas’ ecosystem and working with communities that neighbor gorilla habitats. But it all started decades ago when a remarkable California woman dreamed of Africa. We are proud to honor her memory every day.

Help us honor Dian Fossey's memory by supporting our daily monitoring and protection of gorillas in Rwanda and the Congo. Take action - donate.

Innovative generator generates 6 hours of electricity with a liter of urine, raises questions

ORIGINAL: Ecochunk

By Anupam Jolly

Generating energy with every possible source and means is what is keeping researchers and DIY enthusiasts on their feet. While there is no shortage of sources readily available for conversion, such as sunlight, wind and heat, there are certain people who believe that human waste too holds immense potential as a renewable energy resource. Working on the same lines a team of four African teenagers claim to have built a functional generator that produces electricity from urine.

As it might sound, the process isn’t that simple. The generator, according to the team, works by first extracting hydrogen from urine using and electrolytic cell, then purifies hydrogen using a water purification filter and before using hydrogen to produce electricity, the purified hydrogen goes through liquid borax to remove moisture. The team claims that the generator produces six hours of electricity from just a liter of urine, without giving us any more details about whether the electricity is enough to just power an iPhone or it can run some household appliances too.

Since the details on the apparatus used and the end result are scant, with no video of the working prototype released, there are some who believe that the apparatus is nothing more than one of those projects that should work but actually don’t. Moreover, since the system makes use of hydrogen, the apparatus would have been much better if it directly used hydrogen produced using water electrolysis rather extracting hydrogen from urine.

Engadget points out that the apparatus has the potential to be a “pee-powered biobomb and will need more than its limited safety measures before you’re able to pick one up at your local hardware store”. While Engadget seems to believe that the apparatus can actually work, Nathan Lee, after going through the images and figuring out what exactly is being done there, has other thoughts and states that “While I’d love to believe the story – I just don’t buy it. There’s either something very wrong with their setup or it’s just pointlessly complex for no apparent reason.” Nathan further labels the entire thing as a “quack gadget”, which just like a perpetual motion machine, cannot actually work.

We’ve seen the use of urine as a possible energy source in the past too, but most of these researchers are based on the use of a microbial fuel cell and not an electrolytic cell to separate hydrogen from it. Till the time the team doesn’t come out with a video showing that the apparatus actually works along with telling us some of the details of the system, we’re keeping the discussion open. Feel free to share with us your thoughts about the system in the comments section below.

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Written by Anupam Jolly

With a bachelor’s degree in Information Technology and over five years of experience in online content generation and distribution, Anupam Jolly has been creating and editing content spanning across a variety of domains. An avid environmentalist, Anupam Jolly believes that if humans can degrade the environment, they can save it from disaster too.

La Conservación de la Diversidad Biológica puede mejorar la salud humana en las ciudades en crecimiento del mundo, esto dice la evaluación de las Naciones Unidas

ORIGINAL: Convenio para la Diversidad Biológica - UN / Stockholm Resilience Centre

Stockholm Resilience Centre researcher Thomas Elmqvist explains the many links between urbanization, biodiversity and ecosystem services. Stockholm Resilience Centre

La Integración de los Ecosistemas en la Planificación Urbana Puede Proporcionar Beneficios Económicos Importantes y Reducir el Daño al Medio Ambiente

Hyderabad (India), 15 de octubre 2012 – La urbanización global tendrá consecuencias importantes para la diversidad biológica y los ecosistemas si las tendencias actuales continúan, una cadena de efectos para la salud humana y el desarrollo, según una nueva evaluación del Convenio de las Naciones Unidas sobre la Diversidad Biológica (CDB ).

La evaluación, que se basa en las contribuciones de más de 123 científicos de todo el mundo, estados con más del 60 por ciento  del  área  que  se  proyectó  que  estaría  urbanizada  para  2030,  aún  no  se  ha  construido.  Esto  representa  una  gran oportunidad para mejorar en gran medida el uso sostenible mundial mediante la promoción de bajas emisiones de carbono, desarrollo urbano eficiente que puede reducir los efectos adversos sobre la diversidad biológica y mejorar la calidad de vida, dice.

La Perspectiva de las Ciudades y La Diversidad Biológica el primer análisis mundial de cómo los patrones proyectados de expansión del suelo urbano afectará la diversidad biológica y los ecosistemas cruciales.

El área mundial urbana total se triplicará entre 2000 y 2030, la población urbana se duplicará a cerca de 4.9 mil millones en el mismo período. Esta expansión urbana se basa en gran medida en el agua y otros recursos naturales y consumirá primero la tierra agrícola.

"La forma en que nuestras ciudades se diseñan, la manera de vivir en ellas y las decisiones de política de las autoridades locales, definirá, en gran medida, el uso sostenible mundial en el futuro", dijo Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, Secretario Ejecutivo del CDB.

"La innovación no radica tanto en el desarrollo de nuevas tecnologías de infraestructura y enfoques pero en trabajar con lo que ya tenemos. Los resultados suelen requerir menos recursos económicos y son más sostenibles", añadió el Sr. De Souza Dias.

El informe señala que la expansión urbana se está produciendo rápidamente en las zonas cercanas a los "puntos de conflicto" de la diversidad biológica y las zonas costeras. En el rápido proceso de urbanización, las regiones, tales como los grandes asentamientos y las medianas empresas en el África subsahariana, la India y China, los recursos para poner en práctica la

planificación urbana sostenible son a menudo insuficientes

                           1  Traducido al español como cortesía de la Secretaría                                                                                   

"Más de la mitad de la población mundial ya vive en ciudades. Este número se prevé que aumente, con un 60 por ciento de la población viviendo en zonas urbanas para 2030 ", dijo el Sr. Achim Steiner, Subsecretario General de las Naciones Unidas y Director Ejecutivo del Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente.

"Este informe hace un fuerte argumento para que los planificadores urbanos y los gestores de los activos basados pongan mayor  atención  a  la  naturaleza  dentro  de  los  límites  de  las  ciudades.  El  desarrollo  urbano  sostenible  apoya  valiosos ecosistemas y presenta una gran oportunidad para mejorar las vidas, los medios de subsistencia, y acelerar la transición hacia una economía verde inclusiva ", agregó el Sr. Steiner.

Las ciudades son cada vez más reconocidas por su papel en el apoyo a las especies vegetales, los animales y los ecosistemas diversos. Por ejemplo, más del 50 por ciento de las especies florales de Bélgica se encuentra en Bruselas, mientras que el 65 por ciento de las especies de aves de Polonia se producen en Varsovia.

Los espacios verdes urbanos realizar importantes servicios a los ecosistemas, como el filtrado de polvo, que absorbe el dióxido de carbono del aire y mejora la calidad del aire. Los datos del Reino Unido indican que un aumento de un 10 por ciento en la cubierta de las copas de los árboles en las ciudades puede resultar en una disminución de 3 a 4 °C en la temperatura ambiente, reduciendo así la energía utilizada por el aire acondicionado.

La  diversidad  biológica  urbana  también  ofrece  beneficios  de  salud  importantes.  Los  estudios  han  demostrado  que  la proximidad a los árboles puede reducir la prevalecía del asma infantil y las alergias. La planificación urbana sostenible, aborda cuestiones de diversidad biológica junto con otras prioridades como la lucha contra la pobreza, el empleo y la vivienda, lo cual puede tener efectos positivos para la salud y el medio ambiente.

"Las ciudades necesitan aprender cómo proteger mejor y mejorar la diversidad biológica, puesto que la diversidad biológica puede existir en las ciudades y es extremadamente crítica para la salud y el bienestar," dijo el profesor  Thomas Elmqvist del Stockholm Resilience Centre, y editor científico del informe.

La Perspectiva de las Ciudades y la Diversidad Biológica destaca una amplia gama de iniciativas exitosas proporcionadas por las ciudades, las autoridades locales y los gobiernos sub-nacionales en los países tanto desarrollados como en desarrollo.

En Bogotá, Colombia, medidas tales como el cierre de las carreteras el fin de semana, ha mejorando el sistema de autobuses de tránsito y la creación de carriles para bicicletas resultó en el aumento de la actividad física entre los residentes, y una reducción de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero.

El informe también proporciona un análisis detallado de las tendencias de urbanización regionales y su impacto sobre la diversidad biológica y los ecosistemas.

Asia:

• La región será el hogar de casi la mitad del incremento mundial en suelo urbano en los próximos 20 años. Los cambios más extensos se producen en la India y China.
• El crecimiento agrupaciones urbanas de la India (como el corredor industrial Mumbai-Delhi) posiblemente transforme regiones enteras, con un impacto significativo sobre el hábitat y la diversidad biológica. 
• La pérdida de tierras agrícolas por la urbanización, junto con una planificación insuficiente de las líneas de suministro de alimentos, supone una limitación grave para la seguridad alimentaria en el futuro para la creciente población de la India.
• Cambios en la dieta de la India debido a la urbanización puede disminuir las presiones sobre los bosques debido a la menor utilización de la leña y el carbón vegetal.
• En China, las zonas urbanas van invadiendo cada vez más las áreas protegidas. 

África:

• África se está urbanizando más rápido que cualquier otro continente, y la mayor parte del crecimiento de la población ocurrirá en ciudades de menos de 1 millón de personas. Estas ciudades tienen a menudo estructuras precarias de gobierno, altos niveles de pobreza y la baja capacidad científica sobre la diversidad biológica.
• Los bajos niveles de empleo permanente en las ciudades pone gran dependencia en la prestación de los servicios de los ecosistemas (por ejemplo, la producción de agua y de alimentos) en áreas, ya sea dentro o cerca de los límites de la ciudad.

América Latina y el Caribe

• El número de ciudades en la región ha crecido seis veces en los últimos 50 años.
• La expansión urbana causada por la vivienda para residentes de bajos ingresos a menudo ocurre en áreas importantes para la diversidad biológica y los servicios del ecosistema, tales como los humedales o las llanuras de inundación. Estas son consideradas erróneamente por los planificadores como de valor marginal.

Europa y América del Norte

• En Europa, el nivel de urbanización actual es del 70-80 por ciento, y el crecimiento urbano en las últimas décadas ha sido en su mayoría en forma de expansión de la tierra en lugar de crecimiento de la población.
• Muchas ciudades de Europa y América del Norte han mostrado tendencias de reducción y/o cambios en los patrones de población en las zonas centrales de las ciudades, junto con la expansión de suburbios y áreas que anteriormente eran urbanas.

La Perspectiva de las Ciudades y la Diversidad Biológica demuestra cómo las áreas urbanas pueden jugar un papel central en el logro de las 20 Metas de la Diversidad Biológica (conocidas como las Metas de Aichi para la Diversidad Biológica), que fueron acordadas en 2010 por las partes en el Convenio sobre la Diversidad Biológica.

Por ejemplo, la restauración o el "uso ecológico" de los sitios ocupados anteriormente por industrias o las instalaciones industriales abandonadas por las autoridades municipales pueden apoyar los esfuerzos para lograr la Meta 15 de Aichi, en el que se restaura el 15 por ciento de los ecosistemas degradados para 2020.

Las ciudades también pueden ayudar a prevenir la extinción de las especies conocidas (Meta 12 de Aichi) a través de la investigación y la inversión en parques zoológicos, acuarios y museos, muchos de los cuales son administrados por las autoridades municipales.

La Perspectiva de las Ciudades y la Diversidad Biológica fue producida por la Secretaría del CDB, en colaboración con el Centro de Resiliencia de Estocolmo (SRC) y los Gobiernos Locales para el Uso Sostenible (ICLEI). La Secretaría del Convenio sobre la Diversidad Biológica opera bajo el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente (PNUMA).

El informe completo se puede descargar en:   www.cbd.int/subnational/partners-and-initiatives/cbo.

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Para obtener más información, favor de comunicarse con:

David Ainsworth, Oficial de Información, Secretaría del Convenio sobre la Diversidad Biológica, teléfono +1 514 561 2720 (móvil), Correo electrónico:  David.ainsworth@cbd.int

Sturle Simonsen Hauge, Jefe Adjunto de Comunicaciones, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Teléfono: +46 8 6747428, Correo electrónico: sturle@stockholmresilience.su.se

Bryan Coll, Mesa de Prensa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente (PNUMA), Tel. +254 731 666 214, Correo electrónico: bryan.coll@unep.org /  unepnewsdesk@unep.org

Notas para los Editores

Sobre el Convenio de las Naciones Unidas sobre la Diversidad Biológica

Abierto para la firma en la Cumbre de la Tierra en Río de Janeiro en 1992, entró en vigor en diciembre de 1993, el Convenio sobre la Diversidad Biológica es un tratado internacional para la conservación de la diversidad biológica, el uso sostenible de los componentes de la diversidad biológica  y la participación equitativa de los beneficios derivados de la utilización de los recursos genéticos. Con 193 Partes, el Convenio tiene participación casi universal entre los países. El Convenio trata de abordar todas las amenazas a la biodiversidad y servicios de los ecosistemas, las amenazas del cambio climático, a través de evaluaciones científicas, el desarrollo de instrumentos, incentivos y procesos, la transferencia de tecnologías y buenas prácticas y la participación plena y activa de las partes interesadas pertinentes, incluidas las indígenas y las comunidades locales, los jóvenes, las ONG, las mujeres y la comunidad empresarial. El Protocolo de Cartagena sobre Seguridad de la Biotecnología, un tratado complementario del Convenio, busca proteger la diversidad biológica de los riesgos potenciales que plantean los organismos vivos modificados resultantes de la biotecnología moderna. Hasta la fecha, 164 países y la Comunidad Europea son parte en el Protocolo. La Secretaría del Convenio y su Protocolo de Cartagena se encuentra en Montreal.

Para obtener más información, visite  www.cbd.int

Sobre el Stockholm Resilience Centre

El Stockholm Resilience Centre es un socio de investigación internacional que proporciona conocimientos científicos sobre las interacciones entre los seres humanos y la naturaleza. Parte de la ambición de comprender mejor a la profunda huella que los seres humanos tienen en la naturaleza e ideas sobre cómo hacer frente a los desafíos que resultan del aumento de la capacidad de recuperación socio-ecológica. Una de las áreas estratégicas de investigación es los sistemas urbanos socio-ecológicos, mirando cómo las ciudades pueden integrar mejor los servicios de diversidad biológica y el ecosistema en su planificación y gestión.

El centro también ayuda a facilitar el diálogo con los responsables políticos y los profesionales de todo el mundo, y contribuyen con ideas innovadoras para mejorar la colaboración y el aprendizaje entre las partes interesadas a nivel

local, regional y nacional. Tiene un papel muy respetado como un facilitador para el diálogo en los ámbitos de la gobernanza y el uso sostenible de la diversidad biológica tanto en el contexto rural como urbano.

Sobre los Gobiernos Locales para el Uso Sostenible (ICLEI)

Fundada en 1990, ICLEI - Gobiernos Locales para el Uso Sostenible es la asociación líder mundial de ciudades y gobiernos locales dedicadas al desarrollo sostenible. Este poderoso movimiento de 12 mega-ciudades, 100 súper- ciudades y regiones urbanas, 450 grandes ciudades, así como ciudades pequeñas, medianas empresas y pueblos de 84 países promueve la acción local para el uso sostenible global y ayuda a las ciudades a ser sostenibles, con mayor capacidad de recuperación, con recursos edficiente, diversidad biológica, bajas emisiones de carbono, construyendo una infraestructura inteligente, y desarrollando una economía urbana inclusiva y ecológica. El objetivo final es lograr comunidades saludables y felices.

El Centro Internacional par Ciudades y Diversidad Biológica ICLEI, ubicado en el centro de un punto conflictivo de diversidad biológica en la Ciudad del Cabo, Sudáfrica, ha estado trabajando desde 2006 con los gobiernos locales de todo el mundo en los esfuerzos para mejorar la gestión de la diversidad biológica y compartir sus éxitos y lecciones. Esto ha llevado a una fuerte alianza con la Secretaría del CDB, para fortalecer la defensa de la diversidad biológica en, y por, los niveles de los gobiernos locales y subnacionales en apoyo a la aplicación del Convenio.

Sobre el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente (PNUMA)

Establecido en 1972, el PNUMA es la voz del medio ambiente dentro del sistema de las Naciones Unidas. El PNUMA actúa como catalizador, defensor, educador y facilitador para promover el uso racional y el desarrollo sostenible del medio ambiente global. El PNUMA trabaja con una amplia gama de socios, entre ellos las entidades de las Naciones Unidas, las organizaciones internacionales, los gobiernos nacionales, los organismos no gubernamentales, el sector privado y la sociedad civil.

La labor del PNUMA abarca la evaluación de las tendencias de las condiciones ambientales a nivel mundial, regional y  nacional,  el  desarrollo  de  instrumentos  ambientales  internacionales  y  nacionales,  el  fortalecimiento  de  las instituciones para la gestión racional del medio ambiente, facilitando la transferencia de conocimientos y tecnología para el desarrollo sostenible, y fomentar nuevas alianzas y el modo de pensar dentro de la sociedad civil y el sector privado. Para obtener más información, visite:  www.unep.org

How To Grow a Planet (BBC Documentary 2012)

ORIGINAL: YouTube

Broadcast 2012. How To Grow A Planet: We might think humans are the most powerful living thing on Earth, but it's plants that time and again have set the agenda for life. All animals rely on plants for their survival. This is not an accident - they are the most powerful evolutionary force on Earth. Plants enabled amphibians to leave the water, they had a hand in the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, and they ensured the ultimate triumph of insects, mammals, birds and even us - all for their own benefit. Because plants have only ever had one goal - the total domination of the planet. It is a story of ruthless ingenuity, seduction and deception; of unimaginable power and ambition. An epic tale, How to Grow a Planet offers a stunning new perspective on Earth history.

Life from Light: In this first episode Iain journeys from the spectacular caves of Vietnam to the remote deserts of Africa. He sees how plants first harnessed light from the sun and created our life-giving atmosphere. He uncovers the epic battle between the dinosaurs and the tallest trees on the planet. And, using remarkable imagery, he shows plants breathing - and for the first time talking to each other.

The Power of Flowers: In the second episode, Iain discovers how flowers have transformed our planet. He journeys to the remote islands of the South Pacific to track down the earliest flowers. In the deserts of Africa and rainforests of Vietnam, he sees how they brought brilliant colour to the most barren landscapes and sculpted the earth itself. And he learns how they drove the evolution of all animals - kick-starting our human story.

The Challenger: In the third episode, Iain discovers the remarkable impact of just one plant: grass. On the savannah of South Africa he sees how grass unleashed a firestorm to fight its greatest enemy, the forests. He shows how cutting your finger on a blade of grass shows us how it transformed life in the oceans. In Senegal, he meets the cleverest chimps in the world. And, in the ruins of the oldest temple on Earth, he tells the extraordinary story of how grass triggered human civilisation.

The Genomics of African Hunter-Gatherers: What Cutting-Edge Technology Can Tell Us About Human

ORIGINAL: Huffington Post

Joseph Lachance

Population geneticist, University of Pennsylvania

08/21/2012 6:49 pm

► 13.4 million variants identified in African hunter-gatherers, many of which are novel ► Evidence of archaic admixture found in the genomes of African hunter-gatherers ► Selection scans implicate loci involved in taste perception, metabolism, and immunity ► Genetic associations with height are found for Pygmy variants located on chromosome 3. Source: Journal Cell

What sort of knowledge is hidden in the genomes of African hunter-gatherers? I'm part of a team of researchers that answered this question, and our findings were recently published in the journal Cell. We examined the genomes of 15 African hunter-gatherers, discovering millions of never-before-seen genetic variants, evidence of sex between highly divergent ancient populations, and many parts of the human genome that have been shaped by local adaptation. In this blog, I share my perspective as the first author of the paper and reveal what it's like to study population genetics.

The story of this research actually began a decade ago, when Sarah Tishkoff (my postdoctoral advisor) and others collected DNA from hunter-gatherers living in Cameroon and Tanzania. This fieldwork involved a mix of bureaucratic red tape, hard work, some National Geographic-style exploring, and a little bit of adventure á la Indiana Jones. The Tishkoff Lab continues to send teams to Africa, and it's with a little bit of envy that I listen to lab mates recount tales of their travels. However, this envy is tempered with the knowledge that my skill set is better suited for the lab, and living in Philadelphia offers its own set of adventures.

My involvement in this project began in December 2010, when I joined the Tishkoff Lab at the University of Pennsylvania with a freshly minted Ph.D. in genetics. Upon arriving, I was handed six 2-TB hard drives containing the genomes of 15 African hunter-gatherers and told to have some fun. There's a split second when all you can think is, "Oh crap!" Then you collect yourself and let your curiosity take over. Nowhere is human genetic diversity as great as in Africa, and hunter-gatherers belong to some of the most interesting populations on Earth (including Pygmies from Cameroon and Hadza and Sandawe from Tanzania). To a population geneticist like me, this project was a dream come true. That doesn't mean it was all fun and games (computer crashes always seem to happen at the least convenient time, and more than one Friday night was spent responding to a flurry of emails bouncing between our lab and the labs of collaborators). Before getting to the interesting part of the analysis, we needed to assess the quality of our data. Thankfully, we used high-coverage (>60x) whole-genome sequencing. This means that we sequenced each position in the human genome 60 times, on average. Because of this redundancy we were able to have high confidence that the genetic variants we observed were real and not just the result of sequencing error. That said, there are parts of each genome where it is difficult to sequence. This so-called "dark matter of the human genome" includes highly repetitive DNA, often located in the tips and centers of chromosomes.

One of the great things about population genetics is that it allows us to infer human history by looking at DNA sequences. We do this by constructing mathematical models of evolution and using comparisons. These comparisons can involve different populations, individuals, or parts of the genome. When I compared different hunter-gatherer populations, I observed that Pygmies and the Sandawe have an excess of rare variants, and that the Hadza have a relative lack of rare variants. This is exactly what you would expect to see if Pygmy and Sandawe populations have grown in number and the Hadza have shrunk in number during recent history. When I compared different parts of hunter-gatherer genomes, I found something that was pretty cool: There is less genetic variation near genes. This pattern arises from natural selection acting on beneficial and/or harmful mutations.

When the Neanderthal genome was sequenced, one surprising finding was that all non-African populations appear to contain Neanderthal DNA. Could similar instances of interbreeding have occurred in Africa? Analyzing the genomes of African hunter-gatherers, we found evidence of ancient interbreeding with an unknown hominin population (where "hominin" refers to modern humans, extinct human species, and our immediate ancestors). Using a complicated set of comparisons, my collaborator Benjamin Vernot looked for regions of the genome where DNA from one parent is really different from what was received from the other parent. I wouldn't go so far as to say that we found evidence of a new species. However, there definitely is evidence that our history involves multiple cases where populations diverged only to exchange DNA many thousands of years later.

Comparisons can also be used to see if the strength of natural selection varies for different types of populations. This involves looking to see whether damaging variants are more common in one population than others. Surveying the entire genome, I found that the overall strength of natural selection appears to be similar for African hunter-gatherers and African populations that have agricultural or pastoral subsistence patterns. Evolution still occurs regardless of whether populations have adopted a modern lifestyle. However, when you zoom in on specific genes, numerous signatures of local adaptation can be found.

One particularly interesting signal of local adaptation in the Hadza involves the cannabis receptor gene CNR2. A quick Google search of the terms "Hadza" and "marijuana" shows why this happens to be such an intriguing find. The CNR2 gene is active in immune cells, and it helps modulate responses to inflammation. It's also worth noting that just because the genomic region near CNR2is very different in the Hadza doesn't automatically mean that these genetic changes have any functional effect. Regardless, it's pretty interesting!

The Human Genome Project had a budget of $3 billion, compared to current sequencing costs that are lower than $10,000 per genome. As sequencing costs plummet, the deluge of sequence data will only increase. Although it will take decades before our knowledge of functional biology catches up to all this data, it's an exciting time to study genetics.

New human species identified from Kenya fossils

ORIGINAL: BBC

By Pallab GhoshScience correspondent, BBC News

A new species of human: One of several co-existing in Africa two million years ago 

Researchers studying fossils from northern Kenya have identified a new species of human that lived two million years ago.

The discoveries suggests that at least three distinct species of humans co-existed in Africa.

The research adds to a growing body of evidence that runs counter to the popular perception that there was a linear evolution from early primates to modern humans.

The research has been published in the journal Nature.

Anthropologists have discovered three human fossils that are between 1.78 and 1.95 million years old. The specimens are of a face and two jawbones with teeth.

“Nature was developing different human prototypes only one of which, our species, was ultimately successful” Professor Chris StringerNatural History Museum, London

The finds back the view that a skull found in 1972 is of a separate species of human, known as Homo rudolfensis. The skull was markedly different to any others from that time. It had a relatively large brain and long flat face.

But for 40 years the skull was the only example of the creature and so it was impossible to say for sure whether the individual was an unusual specimen or a member of a new species.

With the discovery of the three new fossils researchers can say with more certainty that H.rudolfensis really was a separate type of human that existed around two million years ago alongside other species of humans.

For a long time the oldest known human ancestor was thought to be a primitive species, dating back 1.8 million years ago called Homo erectus. They had small heads, prominent brows and stood upright.

But 50 years ago, researchers discovered an even older and more primitive species of human called Homo habilis that may have coexisted with H. erectus. Now it seems H. rudolfensis was around too and raises the distinct possibility that many other species of human also existed at the time.

This find is the latest in a growing body of evidence that challenges the view that our species evolved in a smooth linear progression from our primate ancestors.

The human lineage

Instead, according to Dr Meave Leakey of the Turkana Basin Institute in Nairobi, who led the research the find shows that there was a diversity early on in the evolution of our species.

"Our past was a diverse past," she told BBC News, "our species was evolving in the same way that other species of animals evolved. There was nothing unique about us until we began to make sophisticated stone tools."

In other groups of animals many different species evolve, each with new traits, such as plumage, or webbed feet. If the new trait is better suited to the environment then the new species thrives, if not it becomes extinct.

The March of Progress had many dead ends

According to Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London, fossil evidence is increasingly suggesting that human evolution followed the same pattern.

"Humans seem to have been evolving in different ways in different regions. It was almost as if nature was developing different human prototypes with different attributes, only one of which, an ancestor of our species, was ultimately successful in evolutionary terms," he said.

According to Dr Leakey, the growing body of evidence to suggest that humans evolved in the same way as other animals shows that "evolution really does work".

"It leads to amazing adaptions and amazing species and we are one of them," she said.

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