Watching the World.- Fake Fossil. “For 116 years it graced the halls of the National Museum of Wales at Cardiff—the fossilised skeleton of a 200m[illion]-year-old predator that once cruised the Jurassic seas,” says Britain’s newspaper The Guardian. “Then curators at Cardiff decided the remains of the ocean-going carnivore ichthyosaurus needed a brush up—and realised that they had been taken in.” “When we stripped off five layers of paint we found it was an elaborate forgery,” said conservator Caroline Buttler. “It was an amalgam of two types of ichthyosaurus plus a clever attempt at fake parts.” Instead of disposing of it, the museum will put it on display as an example of a fake fossil. Contaminated Mountain Lakes. Mountain lakes are not as clean as they are thought to be. “Even the highest lakes, such as the Schwarzsee above Sölden [Austria], are full of pollutants,” reports the German magazine natur & kosmos. Fish in high-altitude lakes have a DDT level that is as much as 1,000 times higher than fish found at lower altitudes. Why? In tropical countries the poisonous chemical becomes airborne through evaporation and is carried away by air currents to other parts of the world. Over cold spots—like mountain lakes—the DDT particles condense and fall as precipitation. The “ice-cold mountain lakes work like cold traps,” says the magazine, and “snatch the DDT from the atmosphere.” DDT—an insecticide toxic to humans and animals—has been banned in Europe for over 20 years, but it is still being used in developing countries. Personalized Tombs. “Eccentric graves are the new funeral fashion,” reads the French newsmagazine L’Express. Tomb producers offer to erect personalized monuments in 25 different colors, in new designs, and in materials such as stained glass or metal. Monuments already made include sculptures of a parachute, a dog and cow, a train wreck, and a huge barrel—ordered by a wine merchant. One major company states that it makes at least 80 replicas of motorbikes a year to decorate graves. According to the article, local regulations may only allow for a headstone and a slab, but French law gives support to individual beliefs and grants owners of a cemetery plot “freedom of construction.” Beware of Lead in Jewelry. “If your child is likely to chew or suck on jewellery which may contain lead, discard the items immediately,” advises a Health Canada report. Laboratory tests of inexpensive costume jewelry typically purchased for children revealed that most samples had a lead content of between 50 and 100 percent. “Absorbing even low amounts of lead may have harmful health effects on the intellectual and behavioural development of infants and young children,” says the report. Lead content is, of course, difficult to determine without a testing kit. So in view of the normally low cost of children’s jewelry, the best strategy might be that recommended in the National Post newspaper: “When in doubt, throw it out.” Natural Habitat—Key to Conservation. “Habitat protection [is the] key to wildlife conservation,” says the Times of Zambia newspaper. The report states that the greatest factor influencing the decline of wildlife populations is habitat destruction. “Overgrazing, fires, soil erosion, [and] cultivation” are among the culprits. “Obviously agriculture is important and there is no way we can do away with it,” the article explains. But in areas where agriculture “is not so beneficial due to poor soils,” natural habitats could be preserved, says the Times. When domestic animals are brought into these areas, they have difficulty coping with parasites such as ticks and mites, but “wild animals have a natural way of dealing with such pests,” from wallowing in mud and rolling in dust to being pecked clean by birds.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 23:12:50 +0000
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