Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The key to kicking what President Bush calls the nation's oil addiction could very well lie in termite guts, canvas-eating jungle bugs and other microbes genetically engineered to spew enzymes that turn waste into fuel. It may seem hard to believe that microscopic bugs usually viewed as destructive pests can be so productive. But scientists and several companies are working with the creatures to convert wood, corn stalks and other plant waste into sugars that are easily brewed into ethanol -- essentially 199-proof moonshine that can be used to power automobiles. Thanks to biotechnology breakthroughs, supporters...

Fat, toxic toads at the leading edge of an Australian invasion have evolved longer legs than those behind the front lines, report biologists. The alarming discovery not only means the toads can spread more quickly over the continent, but it raises the possibility that under the right conditions, animal evolution can happen in just decades, not eons. That, in turn, has major implications for animals adapting to global warming, as well as biological pest control projects, which generally take for granted that carefully studied animals introduced to fight off invasive species can not evolve into something troublesome. The inexorable, seven-decade-long...

Administration seeks $2.27 million for Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge NASSAWADOX, Va. – The Nature Conservancy today applauded President Bush’s request to fund the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge with $2.27 million from the Land and Water Conservation Fund in Fiscal Year 2007. The Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge and much of the surrounding area in southern Northampton County, are widely recognized as globally important habitat for millions of migratory birds. The Nature Conservancy works with the refuge staff, state agencies and private landowners on the Eastern Shore to protect these vital natural areas...

There is a general consensus that most of today’s nonvenomous snakes are descendants of venomous snakes that lost their venomous capabilities secondarily. This implies that the evolutionary history of venomous snakes and their venom apparatus should be older than the current evidence from the fossil record. We compared some of the oldest-known fossil snake fangs from the Lower Miocene of Germany with those of modern viperids and elapids and found their morphology to be indistinguishable from the modern forms. The primary function of recent elapid and viperid snake fangs is to facilitate the extremely rapid, stablike application of highly toxic...

Rising temperatures are responsible for pushing dozens of frog species over the brink of extinction in the past three decades, according to findings being reported today by a team of Latin American and U.S. scientists. The study, published in the journal Nature, provides compelling evidence that climate change has already helped wipe out a slew of species and could spur more extinctions and the spread of diseases worldwide. It also helps solve the international mystery of why amphibians around the globe have been vanishing from their usual habitats over the past quarter-century -- as many as 112 species have disappeared...

An outbreak of waterborne fungal disease in western Panama has eliminated eight families of Panamanian amphibians and is spreading, scientists report in this week's issue of the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" (PNAS). An outbreak of the infectious disease chytridiomycosis, caused by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, is spreading into the El Cope region, researchers have found. The disease is moving from northwest to southeast from Costa Rica toward Colombia, leaving entire species of dead frogs and salamanders behind. The rockhopper frog, for example, which lived along El Cope riverbanks, disappeared completely within one month. Central American frog Eleutherodactylus...

Scientists exploring an isolated jungle in one of Indonesia's most remote provinces discovered dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants — as well as mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere, members of the expedition said Tuesday.The team also found wildlife that were remarkably unafraid of humans during its rapid survey of the Foja Mountains, an area in eastern Indonesia's Papua province with more than two million acres of old growth tropical forest, said Bruce Beehler, a co-leader of the monthlong trip.Two Long-beaked Echidnas, a primitive egg-laying mammal, simply allowed scientists to pick them up and bring them back...

Our economic system is unsustainable by its very nature. The only response to climate chaos and peak oil is major social change. There is no meaningful response to climate change without massive social change. We cannot sustain earth's life-support systems within the present economic system. Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. And yet this ideological model remains the central organising principle of our lives, and as long as it continues to be so it will automatically undo (with its invisible hand) every single green initiative anybody cares to come up with. Power concentrates around wealth. Only by breaking...

Ethanol has become a hot topic in the State Capitol, with legislators arguing about a proposal to require about 10 percent ethanol in regular-grade gasoline.The Assembly approved the bill, AB15, on a 54-38 vote in December. The Senate has yet to vote on the bill and members are sharply divided.The bill was approved by the Assembly despite a September report from the Department of Natural Resources that mandating ethanol in gasoline would worsen the state's ozone problem.The DNR said that requiring 10 percent ethanol in the most-used grade of gasoline would pollute the air as much as a 350-megawatt coal-fired...

Whales choose mates based on singing, Australian research suggests Wed Feb 1, 4:18 AM ET SYDNEY (AFP) - It's long been thought that singing is used by whales to attract mates or repel rivals, but new Australian research indicates the serenades may be the basis on which the females select their sexual partners. University of Queensland researchers said Wednesday that they believe the male's songs are part of an elaborate courtship ritual between humpback whales as they appear to be directed more towards females than to warn off rival males. "The male singers are spending a lot more time singing...

Town of Mukwonago - The Town Board has begun laying the groundwork for a likely referendum on whether farm land and open space should be preserved by using tax money to purchase development rights. Last week, the board hired a consultant to conduct a public education campaign to explain the goals of a purchase of development rights program, how it is paid for and how it works. Town Chairman David Dubey said much depends on the public response to the educational campaign, but that "a referendum is likely what we'll get to" either this November or the spring of 2007....

The good news: a federal grand jury in Eugene, Oregon, has indicted 11 people on charges that they committed acts of domestic terrorism on behalf of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. Moreover, now one of the FBI's "highest domestic terrorism priorities," according to director Robert S. Mueller III, is to prosecute people who commit crimes "in the name of animal rights or the environment." Nevertheless, it remains worrisome that we still dismiss such terrorists as deranged individuals who pervert the ideology of environmentalism. Even more worrisome is that few of us intellectually grasp, and then rise...

WASHINGTON, DC-- June 26, 1997--The Amazon Basin, home to largest rainforest in the world, is known for its astounding variety of plants and animals. But the rainforest may be also be home to an even more overwhelming variety of previously unknown bacteria and this diversity, just as with plants and animals, may be jeopardized by deforestation, says a report in the July issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

From barely visible fairy shrimp to highly visible black bears, we share our Napa Valley home with a rich diversity of animals, birds, fish, insects and plants. Some of them are listed as threatened or endangered. As our houses and vineyards press outward from the valley floor, we are moving deeper into our wild neighbors' spaces, and discovering that sharing habitats is not always easy. The recent killing of four black bears at a Pope Valley vineyard drew attention to a critical question: How do we balance the need for protecting our agricultural land and crops while also preserving critical...

EIGHT tree-dwelling demonstrators, including a topless woman, were arrested yesterday in Dalkeith Park as the £600,000 operation to evict bypass protesters there entered its final phase. The National Eviction Team began work yesterday morning to move on the army of demonstrators living in the largest of four tree-top camps. It is believed to be the last camp left to clear. Eight of the 'eco-warriors' left voluntarily after the eviction notice was read out at the Pickle Dirt woods. But, four people chained themselves on the ground and another four fastened themselves to a 20-foot high cargo net and had to...

In a female elephant gang, few animals bother the oldest and biggest of the group because they know she will not put up with any nonsense, according to a new study that found age and size determine wild female elephant hierarchies. The study, published in the current issue of Animal Behavior, presents some of the first data on dominance and the social lives of adult, wild female elephants, Loxodonta africana. Females of this species hang out together in family groups for most of their lives. Humans may shrink as they get older, but not elephants. "Female elephants never stop growing,...

It appears global warming is not for the thin-skinned — and that’s bad news for amphibians. Frogs, toads, newts and the like have permeable skins, which makes them especially sensitive to environmental change. It also makes them good species to monitor to get an idea of the health of our planet. In 2004, researchers conducting a global assessment concluded that almost a third of the world’s known amphibian species were threatened with extinction. Now, a new study suggests that global warming may be to blame for amphibians’ precarious state. The study, published last week in the scientific journal Nature, found...

KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Calif. - Spiders, centipedes and scorpion-like critters are among the 27 new animal species that biologists have discovered in the dark, damp caves of two Central California national parks, officials announced Tuesday. The finds were made during a three-year study of 30 caves in Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks. Many of the creatures live only in caves — and some only in one particular cave of Sequoia and Kings Canyon, according to the study, conducted by park staff and biologists from Austin, Texas-based Zara Environmental . "We thought we might find a handful of new...

Madison: The shy, retiring, and threatened Wood Turtle [Glyptemys insculpta], easily overlooked and facing an uncertain future as its habitat is developed, appears to have driven a stake into the heart of plans by Chatham Borough and Chatham Township to develop two playing fields on the Woodland Park property off Woodland Road, adjacent to the Independence Court neighborhood in Madison. In a long-awaited decision released Monday, December 12th, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) classified a portion of the site as "exceptional" wetlands for their habitat value, requiring a 150-foot buffer from any development, and effectively blocking the plan...

Gregory Stone was on a diving expedition off Fiji on December 26, 2004, when the first sketchy reports reached his ship about the undersea earthquake that had spawned a catastrophic tsunami in South Asia. Amid his horror over the human toll, another thought quickly formed in the scientist's mind: What would be the impact of this natural disaster on the region's stunningly beautiful and ecologically critical coral reefs? ADVERTISEMENT Several months later Stone, vice president of global marine programs for the New England Aquarium, traveled with a team to Phuket, the Thai resort island that became well-known to the world...