‘Mysterious’ creature seen hopping along rainforest river for first time in 24 years
Aspen Pflughoeft
Thu, March 2, 2023 at 10:15 PM GMT+1
After eight days of searching rainforests in Madagascar, a researcher stood along a rushing river. Scanning the lush vegetation, something caught his eye.
Two teams of scientists embarked on expeditions into the rainforests on the northeastern coast of Madagascar. Both teams were looking for the same thing: the elusive dusky tetraka.
A “small olive and yellow-throated bird,” the dusky tetraka is native to the island off the east coast of Africa, the only place it is known to be found, The Peregrine Fund said in a Wednesday, March 1, news release.
The bird has a “warbler-like” song and hops along the ground.
There had not been a recorded sighting of the “mysterious” dusky tetraka in 24 years, wildlife researchers said. The two expeditions were hoping to find the “lost” songbird.
Kitchen renovation reveals 400-year-old friezes in York flat Discovery of wall paintings of national significance in Micklegate flat is ‘bonkers’, says Luke Budworth
Robyn Vinter North of England correspondent
Sun 19 Mar 2023 17.11 GMT
A man renovating his kitchen has found a 400-year-old wall painting of “national significance” in his York flat.
Parts of the friezes, dating back to about 1660, were found by kitchen fitters in Luke Budworth’s flat on Micklegate in York city centre last year and have since been fully uncovered.
The paintings are thought to be older than the buildings at either side of the wall and are based on scenes from the 1635 book Emblems written by the poet Francis Quarles.
Budworth, a medical researcher at the University of Leeds, said it was “bonkers” to think the painting was there before historical events such as the Great Fire of London [in 1666].
He told the SWNS news agency: “The first people to originally find it were the kitchen fitters who saw it under my kitchen cupboard.
“When they found it, I knew there was a parallel piece of wood on the other side of the chimney that could have the same thing. I never thought anything of it before, I thought they were pipes behind it.
Industrial Revolution iron method ‘was taken from Jamaica by Briton’ Wrought iron process that drove UK success was appropriated from black metallurgists, records suggest
An innovation that propelled Britain to become the world’s leading iron exporter during the Industrial Revolution was appropriated from an 18th-century Jamaican foundry, historical records suggest.
The Cort process, which allowed wrought iron to be mass-produced from scrap iron for the first time, has long been attributed to the British financier turned ironmaster Henry Cort. It helped launch Britain as an economic superpower and transformed the face of the country with “iron palaces”, including Crystal Palace, Kew Gardens’ Temperate House and the arches at St Pancras train station.
Now, an analysis of correspondence, shipping records and contemporary newspaper reports reveals the innovation was first developed by 76 black Jamaican metallurgists at an ironworks near Morant Bay, Jamaica. Many of these metalworkers were enslaved people trafficked from west and central Africa, which had thriving iron-working industries at the time.
Dr Jenny Bulstrode, a lecturer in history of science and technology at University College London (UCL) and author of the paper, said: “This innovation kicks off Britain as a major iron producer and … was one of the most important innovations in the making of the modern world.”
The technique was patented by Cort in the 1780s and he is widely credited as the inventor, with the Times lauding him as “father of the iron trade” after his death. The latest research presents a different narrative, suggesting Cort shipped his machinery – and the fully fledged innovation – to Portsmouth from a Jamaican foundry that was forcibly shut down.
not Al Capone's safe, but historical documents back to 1830
Lost & Found Department
Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2023 6:31 pm
by jez
RTH10260 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 10:47 am
not Al Capone's safe, but historical documents back to 1830
I love old documents and history. This is so cool. All that history!
Lost & Found Department
Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2023 8:34 pm
by Foggy
Not all who wander stumble around aimlessly are lost.
Narrator:
Lost & Found Department
Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2024 2:48 am
by RTH10260
Lost Golden Mole Rediscovered After 86 Years | Insider News
Insider News
25 Jan 2024
The blind De Winton golden mole thought to be lost for nearly a century was found in South Africa using eDNA, a technique that examines DNA left in the environment
Lost & Found Department
Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2024 12:05 pm
by RTH10260
repost from extinct species thread
Volkonski wrote: ↑Wed Mar 06, 2024 11:14 amRare gray whale, extinct in the Atlantic for 200 years, spotted near Nantucket
The whale was spotted 30 miles south of Nantucket on March 1, seen diving and resurfacing, appearing to feed, the aquarium said in a news release.
The aquarium’s aerial survey team circled the area of the whale for about 45 minutes and took photos, and later confirmed it was indeed a rare gray whale.
“My brain was trying to process what I was seeing, because this animal was something that should not really exist in these waters,” research technician Kate Laemmle, who was in the survey plane, said in a statement. “We were laughing because of how wild and exciting this was — to see an animal that disappeared from the Atlantic hundreds of years ago!”
Gray whales, which lack a dorsal fin, have mottled grey and white skin, a dorsal hump and pronounced ridges, are usually found in the North Pacific Ocean.
The species had disappeared from the Atlantic Ocean by the 18th century, in part due to whaling, the aquarium said. However, five have been observed in the Atlantic and Mediterranean waters in the last 15 years, including a sighting in December off the coast of Florida.
The aquarium said scientists believe the gray whale they spotted is the same one sighted in Florida late last year.
So, why are the sightings happening now? Scientists say climate change plays part.
"The Northwest Passage, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific through the Arctic Ocean in Canada, has regularly been ice-free in the summertime in recent years, partly due to rising global temperatures," the aquarium said.
With the sea ice that usually limits the range of gray whales gone, gray whales can "potentially travel the Passage in the summer, something that wouldn’t have been possible in the previous century," the release said.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
10h ·
WE HAVE BREAKING SNAIL NEWS! Scientists found a living population of an assumed extinct Big Black rocksnail!
Scientists from the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service teamed up to search for the snail after finding a shell during a mollusk study. After searching parts of the river, JACKPOT! They found a large group of living Big Black rocksnails in a privately owned and hard-to-reach part of the Big Black River in central Mississippi.
Freshwater gastropods are among the most imperiled taxa in the world, but they are also among the least researched. Check out our comments to learn more about this exciting news.
Photo of Big Black rocksnails in the river, courtesy of Calvin Rezac/Mississippi Museum of Natural Science
Hawaiian scientist quests to find and save the state’s distinctive sugarcanes Sugarcane biodiversity disappeared as big plantations dominated the sugar trade in Hawaii, but now old varieties are making a comeback
Kiki Aranita
Wed 24 Apr 2024 19.00 CEST
Noa Kekuewa Lincoln remembers when he first encountered unique Hawaiian sugarcane varieties in 2004. The fresh stalks, bursting with color, might have sprouted from Willy Wonka’s imagination, not the soil.
Lincoln, a kanaka maoli (Native Hawaiian) expert in Indigenous cropping systems and an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii, said: “I grew up seeing grayish-green cane fields. But these canes are fluorescent pink, bright apple-green striped. They looked like huge cartoon candy canes. They almost don’t look real!”
That chance moment took Lincoln on a 20-year detour into researching Hawaii’s heirloom and native sugarcane varieties, neglected after centuries of plantation monoculture. Lincoln set out to identify native sugarcanes that existed before western contact and also heirloom canes, which have been growing in Hawaii for centuries. The point is, he said, to “treat them like the individuals they are”.
He likens his research method to traditional navigation, “where you’re triangulating your position” in relation to known points. He interviews kupuna, or elders, in the Hawaiian community; dives into digitized archives of newspapers dating back to the 1830s; and culls information from stories, traditional medicines and chants.
