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POPS"Haughton's Drop", Hanging, Dublin Zoo, Darwin, Wallace, history Haughton House in Dublin Zoo is being restored to its ancient glories in honour of the great patron and scientist. On a visit to Bronx Park, New York he became a bit bored by the record of perfection which he received on all sides, so he enquired about the financial aspect of the institution: how did they pay for their obviously princely expenditure? So-and-so, he was told, but of course the main source of income was gate-money. “What ?” asked Haughton, “do you mean you charge people to get in?” “Of course; don’t you?” “Oh! no - we let them in free; then we enlarge one of our celebrated lions and charge them to get out! We do better that way.”
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POPSWildlife in Florida Everglades - pics The Everglades, a vast chain of marshes that is home to manatees, Florida panthers, great egrets and other threatened species, was declared a protected area in 1934 The health of the park dubbed the River of Grass has suffered greatly in recent years, hurt by polluted runoff generated by sugar farms that lie in the centre of the ecosystem. The land sale, unveiled by Florida governor Charlie Crist, jump-starts one of the biggest environmental rebuilding projects in modern US history. Crist said the pact was "as monumental as our nation's first national park," adding that he hopes to sign a final pact by September.
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POPSThe Catalan Atlas Might Christopher Columbus have had access to such maps in his quest to reach the East Indies? The Catalan Atlas has been traced back to the 14th century; a hundred years before Columbus.
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POPSWildlife in the DMZ: Vanishing rainforest of the Congo basin 1, The demilitarised zone (DMZ) separating South and North Korea is home to over 1,000 plant species and rare animals. The DMZ Forum is a lobby group promoting the idea of turning the area into a nature reserve. 2. The forest is the world's biggest after the Amazon. Now Britain and Norway have created a £108m fund to help protect it from logging and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The Congo basin forest is home to around 50 million people in six countries including Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Congo-Brazzaville. The Congo basin forest is twice the size of France and exceeded in size only by the Amazon. It is estimated that logging - much of it illegal - destroys an area the size of 25,000 football pitches every week. The UN estimates that at present rates two-thirds of the forest will have vanished by the year 2040.
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POPS'They've Stolen our Water, now our SEA' "The illegality of the actions and orders of the army cries out to the heavens. This is a clear case of misusing security considerations as camouflage for achieving other goals which are unrelated to security matters and unacceptable." The Association of Civil Rights (Acri) petition said.
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POPSOil Shortage a myth? "The bad news is that by underestimating proven oil reserves we have been lulled into a false sense of security in terms of environmental issues, because it suggests we will have to find alternatives to fossil fuels in a few decades," said Dr Pike. "We should not be surprised if oil dominates well into the twenty-second century. It highlights a major error in energy and environmental planning – we are dramatically underestimating the challenge facing us," he said. Jeremy Leggett, author of Half Gone, a book on peak oil, is not convinced that Dr Pike is right. "The flow rates from the existing projects are the key. Capacity coming on stream falls fast beyond 2011," Dr Leggett said. "On top of that, if the big old fields begin collapsing, the descent in supply will hit the world very hard."
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POPSHUMMERS: End of the Road?! {& pics} "Let's just say they're not selling like they used to," says Neil Kopit, director of marketing at Criswell Hummer, a dealership in Maryland. Sales of the Hummer H1's successor, the slightly smaller H2, were down 27% in 2007 on the previous year, and GM, which had come to rely on its sales of what the industry terms "large vehicles", has announced the closure of four SUV-manufacturing plants in the US, Canada and Mexico. Nor is the decline confined to Hummers, or to America. British registrations of 4x4 vehicles fell by more than 18% last month, it was reported yesterday. The drop is part of a Europe-wide collapse in the gas-guzzler market: as a proportion of cars sold in France and Spain in the first half of this year, SUVs fell by 50% and 35% respectively. ... Guardian
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POPSMale circumcision is a weapon in the sperm wars
In some forms of mutilation, the handicap to sperm competition is obvious. There is subincision, for example, where cuts are made to the base of the penis. This causes sperm to be ejaculated from the base rather than the end, and is performed in several Aboriginal Australian societies, says Wilson. In some African and Micronesian cultures, young men have one of their testicles crushed. Male genital mutilation makes it less likely that a male will manage to father a child with another man's wife, Wilson says. Home advantage Circumcision is one of the less painful forms of mutilation, but it is also less effective at reducing sperm competition. Wilson suggests, however, that the lack of a foreskin could make insertion or ejaculation slower, meaning brief, illicit sex is less likely to come to fruition and lead to a pregnancy. Younger men, he says, willingly submit to having their reproductive ability reduced because they benefit socially from the older men, by forming allian
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POPS'Unavoidable' attack on Iran looms, says Israeli Minister. "I could not help myself. It is my nature." "Unavoidable" said the Zionists. Then the frog and the scorpion both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river. Self destruction - "It's my Nature", said the Scorpion/Zionists, And just like in 1967 and at Pearl Harbour, the scorpion will strike first. "It's in my Nature" Then the 1967 oil crisis will have been a fireball compared to the glimmer we will have after the Zionist go nuclear. Like their glory in Samson, they'd finish us all off gladly to fulfil crazy predictions.
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POPSDublin Zoo: Nature's Way is Best Way I was reminded of this while visiting last week. I'm a member and had been informed of this in our newsletter. In the brand new extensive Zoo area, two new caves have been born. I love visiting my relatives with my grandchild.
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POPSReport: Bush LIED "reduced, marginalised, or mischaracterised" Nothing new. Watch now as his lackeys discover that they have some backbone, sadly missing for years, as the lame duck fills his days sticking his greasy fingers in all the spouting dikes. Tricky Dick had nothing on this bastard. A world at war, the dollar sinking, 4,000 dead US soldier to a coward c-in-c, chaotic climate, worst recession in 50 years, FEAR endemic, civil rights shot to hell, Gitmo, torture, rendition, kangaroo courts, WMD and on and on synonymous with the United States. One million Russians couldn't damage America to the extent that Bush has. A fresh start is your only salvation! Tricky was an angle in comparison. Why isn't Bush - the bushwhacker - impeached. Why is the tail still wagging the dog?
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