Rhino

Those fighting to save rhinos have cause to cheer. The African black and white rhinos, poached almost to extinction in the 1990s, seem to have made a comeback. Killed mainly for their horns, which are used in traditional medicines in Asia, the rhino’s numbers have gone up from 8466 white rhinos and 2.599 black ones in 1997 to 15, 400white ones and almost 4000 black ones. Another reason for the declining numbers was habitat loss.

Petra Fleischer, of Save the Rhino International, told the website LiveScience.com, “It’s the combined effort of anti-poaching work and monitoring to get a better picture of populations, environmental education, government strategies and community involvement. International funding is important too. It’s important to work with local communities to find opportunities for generating income through conservation, such as through tourism”. Apart from the African rhino, three species of Asian rhinoceros are also critically endangered.

Brontosaurus

Not all your rough and tough dinos were carnivores; some were veggies and they were among the biggest of the lot. Now scientists find that the diet of the massive sauropods was more nutritious than they’d previously thought. The sauropods, which include the Apatosaurus (better known as the Brontosaurus), grew up to 130 feet in length and weighed around 110 tonnes. Other data hint that they may supplemented with gingkoes, ferns, horsetail and other plants. These were considered nutritionally poor since few animals eat such plants today. To study how dinosaurs survived on these plants, scientists placed microbes found in sheep guts in airtight glass syringes that also contained ground samples of vegetation found in those times. Surprisingly it was found that they emitted quite a reasonable amount of energy explaining how the sauropods survived on their diet. Sauropods also swallowed their food whole and some kinds of conifers were slow-burning high energy types, which meant slow fermentation in the cavernous stomachs.

Rare purple pearl

Imagine biting into your seafood and coming up with a pearl. Not likely, you would say! But Mike McHenry in New Jersey and George Brock of Royal Palm beach, Florida, wouldn’t agree with you. Brock came up with a rare purple pearl in his dish of steamed clam while McHenry found a pea-sized one in his fried oysters. The suppliers of seafood in both cases were left speechless. While Brock’s pearl is quite valuable and is worth thousands, McHenry was not so lucky. His find was misshapen and discoloured but he’s not complaining. “It’s a souvenir I’ll put on my bar, maybe” he told the Associated Press.

Heat released by chilling

A dairy needs to chill its milk before sending it out to consumers. But think of the energy that goes into the process? In Sweden, the heat released by chilling 7, 900 gallons of milk a day will help warm the historic rooms of an 18th century castle. The milk from 1, 100 cows will be used to heat a gym, a workshop and a 50-room complex. After considering biogas and wind power for this purpose, the authorities zeroed in on the environmentally friendly solution available on their own estate. The milk-heating solution will begin with the castle and slowly other buildings would also be covered by this option.

Young Baboons

Having dad at home is a good thing for the kids, at least in baboon society. A new study at Duke University has shown that young baboons, especially females, which grow up with their father around are healthier and mature more quickly. Primatologist Susan Alberts speculates that the male may help increase nutrition by getting more food. Another possibility is that they interfere in disputes on behalf of their kids, which helps reduce junior’s stress levels. UCLA anthropologist Joan Silk pointed out that, since females mated with multiple males, the general belief was that males didn’t know who their offspring were. But a study of DNA samples from baboons in Kenya showed that infants grew up with their fathers. The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

ID Theft Reviews

Be empowered to stop thieves from opening unauthorized accounts in your name. In 2006, there were about 15 million victims of identity theft, equivalent to 28.5 people per minute. About 7.2 million households are affected by identity theft every year. $100,000 is stolen per minute in the US through identity fraud.

Protect yourself by the use of Fraud Alerts offered by LoudSiren. A Fraud Alert is a notice placed with the three major credit bureaus that alerts a potential creditor that you may be a victim of identity theft thus imposing a legal duty on the creditor to contact you before issuing any credit in your name. A fraud alert will protect you against possible access by thieves without shutting down your access to your own credit. Fraud alerts have no negative impact on your credit score.

LoudSiren, LLC is a member of the Identity Protection Network and marketing partner of Debix, Inc of Austin, Texas. The Identity Protection Network was established in 2004. It is the first national network that is dedicated to protecting both individuals and organizations from identity fraud.

LoudSiren employs state-of-the-art technology for authenticating customer identity thus protecting the clients from financial fraud. The consumer accesses his credit while keeping it secure from others.

LoudSiren offers the consumer the ability to receive a fraud alert phone call at any of three numbers, which are never made available to those viewing the consumer's credit report. The company offers each consumer his/her personal 'Consumer Protection Number'. It files this number with the credit bureaus when it places your fraud alert. Hence on any future credit applications you file, you list the number as the phone number on the application, which the creditor calls. LoudSiren then electronically transmits the call to you at up to three numbers of your choice, in the order you choose. This keeps your personal phone numbers private from past creditors, bill collectors, or any other person accessing your credit report. LoudSiren keeps a record of the creditor's request and your approval or denial of a loan, thereby protecting you in case the creditor grants a loan in your name wrongly.

If you do not use the LoudSiren (Debix) service, you will not be able to keep your phone number private and receive warning calls at multiple numbers. By law, fraud alerts must be renewed every 90 days.

Identity theft can happen anywhere to anyone. If your identity is stolen, you can spend very many hours in an effort to clean up your credit and restore a good name.

Mummy of Hatshepsut-Egypts

Egyptologists say they have identified the 3, 000-year-old mummy of Hatshepsut, Egypt’s most famous female ruler. Egypt’s antiquities chief Zahi Hawass made the official announcement at a packed news conference in Cairo. It is being billed as the biggest archaeological find in Egypt since the 1922 discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb. Archaeologists hope the mummy, which has lain unrecognized for decades, will yield clues about the mystery of her death and subsequent disappearance. Mr Hawass has set up a DNA lab near the museum with an international team of scientists to verify the identification. An important piece of the evidence is said to be that the mummy has a missing tooth, and the gap matches exactly an existing relic, a preserved tooth engraved with Hatshepsut’s name. Hatshepsut was an important 18th Dynasty ruler in the 15th century BC, having usurped her stepson, Thutmosis III. She was known for dressing like a man and wearing a false beard, and was more powerful than either of her more famous female successors, Nefertiti and Cleopatra. Hatshepsut’s funerary temple is one of the most visited monuments around the pharaonic necropolis of the Valley of the Kings in Upper Egypt. But after her death, her name was obliterated from the records in what is believed to have been her stepson’s revenge.