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Hollywood,
USA, is home to around 5,000 pigeons, and their population
is booming day by day. But the residents of the area
are displeased, as the mess the birds make is getting
too tough to manage. So, the People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA), an animal rights group,
has given them a solution — to put a birth control product
OvoControl P in bird food. “The pigeon population is
expected to shrink by at least half by 2012,” says Laura
Dodson, president of the Argyle Civic Association, the
group leading this effort. The idea sure seems better
than using spiked rooftops, and poisons.
A sheep
in Canterbury, New Zealand, recently gave birth to a
lamb with seven legs. It has three rear legs, one leg
attached to the hoof, and two legs behind its forelegs,
which are completely useless. The polydactyl (with many
legs) lamb is able to walk with its two forelegs and
three hind legs. These types of cases are very rare
and occur just once in several million sheep. But unfortunately,
a portion of its bowel is missing, which will force
authorities to eventually euthanise it.
Ants will now help us
plan our future townships. Their movement and the way
they deal with congestion will help us establish congestion-free
cities without traffic jams. Their teamwork is perhaps
‘far more superior’ to our individual approach. “Ants
will organise their freeways so that those bearing loads
are in the middle of the freeway, all going in one direction,
and the ants that are un-laden are on both sides of
the middle row,” says Professor Graham Currie of Melbourne’s
Monash University. Smart indeed!
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A new member has been added to the
Caribbean island family. A tiny island has
been recently born near Trinidad to a
‘mud volcano’ — an ocean floor-fissure
continuously spewing mud. Similar
islands were born off the Trinidad and
Tobago coast in 1964 and 2001. But this
member has a short-life, as large waves
may wash away the mud and with it the
fissure. Nevertheless, an advisory has
been issued as a security to small boats,
as the 500 feet long island may endanger
them. Though a bit unsafe for the
fishermen, the island will surely be a
boon for the region’s tourism industry.
The civil war in Indonesia's Aceh province
has been a blessing for the orangutans living there.
The war, which ended in 2005, kept away logging firms
and palm oil estates from one of the world’s richest
expanses of rainforest. This helped to stabilise the
decreasing population of the orangutans. Now, there
are about 7,300 Sumatran orangutans left in the wild.
But of course, the loggers might get back to their business
soon, risking the survival of this critically endangered
mammal, and the Leuser Ecosystem — the last place on
Earth where orangutans, tigers, rhinos, leopards and
elephants coexist.
The rhetoric use of the phrase
‘golden country’ for India has
become quite literal. Indians drove
the global demand for gold, which
reached its peak during April-June
quarter, and bought 317 tonnes of
of the precious metal! This is almost
half of world’s gold production in
the same quarter. According to
World Gold Council’s latest report,
there was a 91 per cent rise in
demand owing to a strong currency
that led to a fall in gold prices in
rupee terms; rise in purchasing
power of the people; and a
successful festival season (including
Akshaya Tritiya). And the demand is
not only for gold jewellery, but also
for gold as an investment option.
“The figures from India this quarter
are pleasing and we will continue to
encourage India’s ongoing love
affair with gold,” says WGC CEO
James Burton.
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