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 Fossil
of a monster-size reptile has been discovered in a 150
million-year-old Jurassic graveyard on an Arctic island off
Norway. The skeleton of the fish-like reptile is about 10 meter
(33 feet) long with “vertebrae the size of dinner plates and
teeth the size of cucumbers,” says Joern Hurum, an
assistant professor at the University of Oslo. Remains of 28
plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs – top marine predators when
dinosaurs dominated on land – have also been discovered with it.
Everybody
desires something extra, and Henrietta just has it! Who’s
Henrietta? She’s a chicken living at Brendle Farms in Somerset,
Pennsylvania, US. And she has four legs! Henrietta has two normal front
legs and, behind those, two more feet.
All the legs
are of a similar size, but the extra legs don't function. She
simply drags them behind her. Not of much use. But the legs have
surely given her an extra edge over other chicken.
What can make a captive ape
feel at home in its cage? Adequate space, fresh food, variety in
the diet, some type of ‘enrichment’, and… company! Dr Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a leading expert on great ape
intelligence and behaviour, believes that sociological,
psychological and cultural factors are vital for the adequate
functioning of apes.
She works with Great Ape Trust of Iowa, and is the first and
only scientist doing language research with bonobos. Hmm… so
even apes love to socialise like we do. |
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A multicoloured bird has been discovered in a Colombian cloud
forest. The yellow and black Yariguies Brush-Finch has
reddish-brown and black eyes, and topped with an orange plume.
It was found in the country’s eastern Andean range in Santander
province.
The bird is named after an Indian tribe that once lived in the
nature reserve where it was found. Colombia has about 1,800
species of bird. However, this is just the first of several new
species that researchers have discovered from the
Yariguies Mountains, including several new butterflies.
 Don’t
be scared! Tamiflu is not another flu
virus. It is a drug that many countries, including India, use
to ward off the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus. Genetic and DNA
sequencing of the virus collected by scientists from Bhopal’s
high security Animal Disease Laboratory, has revealed
that the virus contained several types of amino acids that made
it sensitive to Tamiflu. Timely use of this drug, scientists
say, helped India avert a possible transmission of the deadly
H5N1 virus from birds to humans. A victory well won.
 According
to a new report by the International Labour
Office, the number of
unemployed youth aged 15 to 24 rose over the past decade, and
millions more are working but living in poverty.
While the number of young unemployed increased from 74 million
to 85 million, or by 14.8 per cent between 1995 and 2005, more
than 300 million youth, or approximately 25 per cent of the
youth population, were living below the US $2 per day poverty
line.
Unemployed youth make up 44 per cent of the world's total
unemployed despite the fact that their share of the total
working age population aged 15 and over is only 25 per cent.
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