Feed aggregator

Recent studies now quantify the water and energy costs of discarded and spoiled produce, grains, meat, and dairy.

By Tasha Eichenseher in Stockholm, Sweden

This post is part of a special news series on global water issues.

Next time the person sitting across the table from me jokes about my tendency to finish every last bite, I will be able to defend my gut reaction to not waste food. (After I'm finished chewing, of course.)

Recent studies now quantify the water and energy costs of discarded and spoiled produce, grains, meat, and dairy.

Water

Experts weighing in at World Water Week in Stockholm estimate that half of the irrigation water used around the world is lost to wasted food--the equivalent every year to half of Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, or 365 trillion gallons (1,380 cubic kilometers).

In the U.S. alone, we throw away or waste about 30 percent of our food, the equivalent of about 11 trillion gallons (40 cubic kilometers) of irrigation water, according to a report distributed at the conference on the water footprint of food waste.

(Read more about thirsty food.)

Photograph by Becky Hale

This would be enough household water for nearly 300 million Americans a year, according to National Geographic's water footprint calculator estimates.

"The amount of water that can be saved by reducing food waste is much larger than that saved by low-flush toilets and water-saving washing machines," the report, published by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), states.

Food waste is largely a result of inefficient harvesting, transportation, storage, processing, and packaging. The waste tends to be highest in developed countries with large urban populations, according to SIWI.

Nearly 4,600 kilocalories of food per person a day are produced in the field worldwide, but after you account for crops fed to animals, and losses through harvesting and distribution, and at home, there are only 2,000 kilocalories of food per person a day available for consumption around the globe.

The average hamburger requires 630 gallons (2,400 liters), when you account for the irrigation of cattle feed crops, as well as water used in production. (More support for Meatless Mondays (http://www.meatlessmonday.com/
.) A cup of coffee takes 37 gallons (140 liters) to make.

(Use our hidden water tool to learn the water footprint of many more food items.)

Understanding these supply chain losses is critical to solving the problem, says Arjen Hoekstra, director of the Netherlands-based Water Footprint Network, the nonprofit and academic institution that pioneered the water footprint concept.

"We know relatively well how [many] crops are produced and the water needed to produce them, but we have less data about how much ends up in our stomach," Hoekstra told National Geographic News. "Wastes occur all over the supply chain, at the field, in transport and processing and finally at home. The longer the chains the more waste."

SIWI sees opportunities for streamlining the supply chain and reducing waste by improving water efficiency in the field through better capture and use of rainwater. There are also irrigation technologies that could be installed, with funding and technological assistance. The Institute also advocates for food prices that reflect the true cost of production. But the key, according to SIWI is more awareness, among the public, farmers, and businesses, about water inefficiencies in agriculture, which uses 70 percent of all available freshwater, and the competition for increasingly scarce water among farms, factories, growing cities, and the environment.

Nearly 1.4 billion people live in areas where there is not enough water to meet individual, industry, energy, and agricultural needs, according to the report.

"We need to eat in ways that save our health, ours and the environment," 2008 Stockholm Water Prize winner John Anthony Allan said today during a World Water Week session on the future of water. Allan is the father of "virtual water," a building block of water footprint calculations.

Energy

On a related note, a paper published earlier this summer in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, estimates the energy losses associated with food waste in the U.S.

The energy required for food production, transportation, processing, sales, storage, and preparation was between 8,000 and 9,000 BTUs in 2007, or about 2 percent of American annual energy consumption.

The energy footprints used in this analysis did not include energy used to pump, distribute, and treat any water used in irrigation or processing, according to co-author Michael Webber, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas-Austin's Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy.

(Read: "How to Stem a Global Food Crisis? Store More Water.")

With its origins in British Columbia, Rivers Day has now evolved into a global event celebrating the values of our waterways while also urging the need for better stewardship.

By Mark Angelo

This post is part of a special news series on global water issues.

As final preparations are being made for World Rivers Day, which will take place later this month, I've found myself thinking a lot recently about the origins of this important and timely event. And while World Rivers Day as a global phenomenon has been around for only 6 years, it's beginnings go back much further than that.

I've had a love for rivers ever since I was a child. Yet, I didn't have to be very old before I gained an appreciation of the many threats that confront our waterways. As an example, living beside the Los Angeles River as a boy, I spent a great deal of time along this once productive stream that was now entirely encased in a massive concrete culvert. And then, during a trip to Arizona in the early 60's, I saw the completion of the Glen Canyon Dam that flooded one of the most beautiful canyons in the United States. Moving to Montana, I lived close to the Miltown Dam on the Clark Fork River, the upstream stretch of which had become one of the more toxic sites in the country as a result of accumulating mining residue.

During my years in Montana, I became an avid paddler and fly-fisher, exploring many of the state's great rivers in the process. So when I had the chance to move to British Columbia in the early 70's, I looked forward to living in a province renowned for its many great waterways. I was also excited about living close to the Fraser River, one of the world's great salmon rivers.

Yet, despite its abundance of incredible waterways, I was surprised that there wasn't an event of some kind that celebrated the importance of rivers. In an effort to address this, we approached the Province of BC in 1980 about endorsing an inaugural Rivers Day event that would take place on the last Sunday in September. To commemorate that, we organized a clean-up on the Thompson River, a major tributary of the Fraser.

On that day, working with groups such as the Outdoor Recreation Council of BC, a flotilla of rafts and a group of 40 volunteers collected a massive amount of garbage and debris while also making arrangements with local towing companies to remove several abandoned cars that sat on the rocks above the river. The event was a great success! That evening, all the participants got together and talked about how rewarding the day had been (it was also a lot of fun!). Everyone was keen to do it again so the following year, we went ahead and planed a few additional events. Once again, they were all successful so we planned a few more the year after that. And before we knew it, the event took on a life of its own.

Initially known as BC Rivers Day, this celebration grew to include festivities around the province involving up to 75,000 people. Events ranged from stream cleanups and habitat enhancement projects to educational outings and community riverside celebrations.

Given the success of this initiative in British Columbia, I couldn't help but think there was potential for a similar event internationally, especially in light of the positive response to the United Nation's International Year of Fresh Water in 2003. When the UN then announced that they would embark on the Water for Life Decade commencing in 2005, an initiative aimed at increasing awareness of the importance of our global water resources, we saw a great complimentary fit for the establishment of a formal World Rivers Day.

Consequently, we approached agencies of the UN, including the United Nations University and the International Network on Water, Environment and Health. We received their blessing and, in September of 2005, the first World Rivers Day was celebrated. Since then, we've formally partnered with the UN's Water for Life Decade initiative and the event has grown in leaps and bounds.

This year, dozens of countries and millions of people will be involved in Rivers Day celebrations. Events will take place from Canada to South Africa; from England to the Caribbean Island of Dominica; from Poland to the United States; and from India to Taiwan. And while these events will help to create a greater awareness of the natural, cultural and recreational values of our rivers, they'll also strive to encourage participants to become even more active as river advocates and stewards.

The growing interest in World Rivers Day, now coordinated by the Rivers Institute at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, is very timely in that rivers around the globe are facing increasing pressures, ranging from urbanization and pollution to the building of dams and the excessive extraction of water. Climate change is also increasingly taking its toll on many rivers. If events like Rivers Day can help to profile these issues while also engaging the public and creating an even greater appreciation of the many values of our waterways, then it can only be positive.

My hope is that, on September 26th, people around the world will take time to think about their local rivers and streams. Hopefully, we'll also consider how we might better care for them. For many, they may be able to attend a nearby Rivers Day event, or perhaps even plan one of their own. If nothing else, Rivers Day is a wonderful and appropriate opportunity to simply get out and enjoy a nearby stream and contemplate just how much they contribute to our quality of life.

Coming back to British Columbia, many of our Rivers Day events this year will focus on the recent return of 34 million sockeye salmon to the Fraser River; our biggest run in 97 years. After several years of poor returns and lots of disappointment, we now have something to celebrate. And while many challenges and threats to our rivers and fish stocks remain ahead, this year's magnificent salmon return offers a glimmer of hope.

Mark Angelo is the chair of the Rivers Institute at the British Columbia Institute of Technology and an internationally acclaimed river conservationist. He has received the Order of Canada, his country's highest honor, in recognition of his river conservation efforts both at home and abroad. He received the United Nations International Year of Fresh Water Science, Education and Conservation Award, the Order of British Columbia, the National River Conservation Award, and an honorary doctorate from Simon Fraser University. He is a Fellow International of the Explorers Club. Angelo is the chair and founder of World Rivers Day, an event celebrated across dozens of countries on the last Sunday of each September. He has traveled on and along close to 1,000 rivers around the world over the past 5 decades. He has authored numerous articles and papers about rivers and his expeditions, including the Riverworld presentation launched in concert with National Geographic Online in 2003 and shown to audiences across North America.

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On the eve of the 70th anniversary of the discovery of the cave paintings in Lascaux, France, experts from around the world are gathered this week at the Park of Prehistory in the Pyrenees to discuss the beautiful and enigmatic remnants of the world of prehistoric art. National Geographic Digital Media's Andrew Howley continues blogging from the event.

By Andrew Howley

Tarascon-sur-Ariège, France--Day 2 of the 2010 IFRAO conference on paleolithic art around the world was in many ways like the moment when you step into a cave you've spotted and see inside for the first time. The broad topics of yesterday that formed the walls of this cave now started to show the many curves and hollows, stalactites and stalagmites of particular theories and tools for understanding it all better.

The very first presentation I witnessed was from Patricio Bustamante, and it got right to the question of how and why was this art made.

He pointed out that art is in many ways in the eye of the beholder (or in some cases, simply the "holder"). This process stars with "pareidolia," where someone looks at a naturally occurring form and sees the image of something else entirely. Finding pictures in clouds is probably the best known example of this, though perhaps finding them in rocks is the oldest example we will ever find.

And that tradition continues today, from Robert Bednarik's rock that looks like a face, associated with 3-million-year-old Australopithecus, to this mammoth silhouette I discovered myself just this past Saturday (see video below).

 

Video: A premonition of pareidolia--a mammoth silhouette--discovered en route to the conference.

Once people were taking note of natural objects that reminded them of other things, it wasn't too far of a stretch for them to make small alterations to aid the illusion. After all, they had already been making finely executed stone tools for millennia. From there, it was just a matter of realizing as long as you're changing some aspects, you could also start with a blank rock and add all the necessary shapes from scratch.

This approach may seem very straightforward, but it can be revolutionary in its way, because it focuses on the images being held onto or created simply because they were noticed, and not necessarily for any other symbolic purpose. This point was to come up again when discussing the novel use of bear skulls by Neanderthals, and to culminate with a proposition for a whole new way of looking at art and its creation.

"Artification"

Ellen Dissanayake doesn't like to assume that just because something has designs or images, it must have a symbolic purpose. She says that basically, what we know for sure is that people like to take ordinary things and make them extraordinary. This process she calls "artification."

We all do this in various ways, from putting up striped wallpaper to getting wingtip shoes with fancy but functionless holes. Or maybe in the winter you deck the halls with, oh let's say boughs of holly. The end result may carry some symbolic meanings, but they're not necessarily there in all cases. And in the case of holly, they may be there or not for different people--for some people it's simply decorative, for some it's rich with medieval Christian symbolism, and for others, it carries the ancient northern meanings of Yule. All using the same object or design at the same time, in the same way, with completely different symbolic intent.

Under the umbrella of "artification" we can talk about all of that at once, without forcing associations that may not be there.

While all this theoretical discussion was going on in one room, in a tent a few paces away others were getting down to the hardest science they could. There, Jaroslav Bruzek discussed structuring a measurement system to turn dozens of cave paintings into a series of data points. He and his team then analyzed 51 separate drawings, and were able to identify the recognizable hands of 6 individual artists.

And speaking of individual artists, in discussing the recently discovered mammoth engraving on a piece of bone in Florida, Barbara Olins Alpert pointed out that despite all of the comparisons and generalizations that can be made, there are some pieces that are simply more expertly executed than others. Even though most everything about the lives of these artists is unknown to us, we can still look at these ancient art works and recognize that someone who was darn good at carving mammoths, carved this one (see related photo and link below.)

The Americas' oldest known artist may have been an Ice Age hunter in what is now Florida, according to an anthropologist who examined a 13,000-year-old bone etching. Read the full June 2009 story.

Photograph courtesy Mary Warrick, Florida Museum of Natural History

Much more was discussed throughout the day, and late at night, a few of us were treated to the "lost sequel" to one presenter's work, hunched over a laptop in the campground restaurant, but that had enough for a whole post in its own right.

Tomorrow we head into actual caves in the region, to see this art first-hand. I am sure there will be stories to tell.

Earlier blog post: Mysteries of Prehistoric Rock Art Probed

Andrew Howley is a senior producer for National Geographic Digital Media, responsible for editing the National Geographic website home page and the front page of National Geographic Daily News. He also manages the National Geographic Facebook page, which has more than 1,700,000 followers. Prior to joining National Geographic, Andrew was a programming manager at America Online, which included writing promotions for the Welcome Screen. He received a BA in Anthropology (focus on Archaeology) from the College of William & Mary, Virginia. His personal interests are history reading, painting, running, and developing educational projects.

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A report released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has warned that at least 34 Colombian tribes face extinction due to continuing violence on their lands, Survival International said this week.

The report found that, "In spite of new efforts by the state...the risk of physical or cultural disappearance remains, and in some cases has risen," the UK-based charity, which advocates for tribal peoples worldwide, said in a news release.

The Nukak need "special attention" to survive, according to the United Nations report. © D Hill/ Survival

According to Survival:

An increase in murders, death threats, and the forced recruitment of indigenous youth into armed groups are just some of the dangers reportedly facing Colombia's Indians.

Internal displacement is also cited as a major issue that disproportionately affects Colombia's tribal peoples. Of the country's four million internal refugees, Indians make up 15 percent of the total, despite the fact that they represent just 2 percent of the national population.

Just two weeks before the report was released, leader Luis Socarrás Pimienta of the Wayúu tribe was shot dead by an alleged paramilitary outside his home in the northern Colombian province of la Guajira. According to the report, murders of indigenous Colombians rose by 63 percent between 2008 and 2009, and 33 members of Colombia's Awa tribe were killed in 2009 alone.

More than half of the Nukak have been wiped out since the arrival of coca-growing colonists on their land. 

The Awa are mentioned alongside one of the Amazon's last nomadic tribes, the Nukak, as requiring "special attention." More than half of the Nukak have been wiped out since the arrival of coca-growing colonists on their land. The Nukak remain trapped in a cruel limbo between oppressive refugee shelters on the outskirts of a town and the violence-stricken forest.

An earlier UN report cites a suspected program of "ethnic cleansing" in the country to make way for illicit crops or "to establish large-scale agro-business ventures, including palm oil plantations and beef cattle production."

"We can move around less and less, even to hunt or collect food," said a leader of the recently displaced Wounaan tribe, who blames the presence of armed groups and heightened violence on an influx of coca cultivation in Wounaan territory.

Survival International's director, Stephen Corry, said" "Colombia's former President lays claim to his successful campaign against violence, yet this report has again illustrated the country's abysmal record of human rights abuses against its indigenous population. Juan Manuel Santos' new government must act once and for all to protect its most vulnerable citizens from being wiped out, before it's too late."

Posted by David Braun from media material submitted by Survival International.

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By Jordan Schaul

Polar Bears International is not just another conservation group trying to save another vanishing species. It's an organization that questions how we choose to live on this planet. Will we continue to exploit natural resources and destroy the very environment that we rely on ourselves for survival? Or will we change our behavior, think outside ourselves, become stewards of the environment and live as sustainable inhabitants of the Earth?

The polar bear is a majestic animal, and the Earth's largest land carnivore. This amazing animal was designed to live a life on the sea ice in an unforgiving Arctic biome. Yes, saving the polar bear is the primary focus of Polar Bears International--perhaps one of the most influential wildlife conservation organizations of our time--but the organization has also brought attention to our own destiny and the need for better stewardship of our planet.

Sedated polar bear, Churchill, Manitoba, being relocated from polar bear jail. CEO and President of Polar Bears International Robert W. Buchanan is in the center, next to the camera.

Photo by Jordan Schaul

Polar bears are a flagship species, a charismatic megavertebrate. They are also an indicator species of climate change. There are other indicator species of climate change, but none more notable than the polar bear.

There is a paucity of life in polar and circumpolar regions of the world, but the polar bear compensates for this lack of species richness (diversity) in the Arctic. It is such an impressive and captivating animal that we are forever awed by them.

"The polar bear may very well disappear because its habitat is literally disappearing before our eyes."

But the polar bear may very well disappear because its habitat is literally disappearing before our eyes. Their numbers have not dropped to levels of some other critically endangered species, thus far. But in their case the prognosis may be worse.

The habitat that was once suitable for supporting these apex predators, permitting them to pursue and ambush seals from above in seal lairs or when these pinnipeds surface at breathing holes, is disappearing. Without the sea ice they can't reach their food. It's very simple. Without access to their prey base, they can't survive.

This summer plans were announced to construct the new International Polar Bear Conservation Centre (IPBCC) at Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo. In June Polar Bears International announced plans to open a new polar bear center this coming fall at the Manitoba zoo. The center will serve as an international hub for zoo (collection)-based research and education resources as well as a quarantine, holding, and transition centre for orphaned polar bear cubs, injured sub-adults, or bears affected by a catastrophic events (such as oil spills).

Polar bear rehabilitation, research and public education will be the focus of the first-of-its-kind, world-class International Polar Bear Conservation Centre, Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger said in June this year, during a snow-turning ceremony to announce Canada $1 million in provincial funding for the Assiniboine Conservancy, the first part of a $31-million provincial commitment. The provincial commitment will include $4.5 million for the conservation centre and more than $26 million for construction of a polar-bear arctic exhibit. Right to Left: Don Streuber, Vice Chair Board of Directors Assiniboine Park Conservancy, Robert W. Buchanan, CEO & President Polar Bears International, Greg Selinger, Premier Province of Manitoba, Bill Blaikie, Minister of Conservation Province of Manitoba.

Photo courtesy of Assiniboine Park Zoo 

Right to Left: Bill Blaikie, Minister of Conservation Province of Manitoba, Greg Selinger, Premier Province of Manitoba, Robert W. Buchanan, CEO and President Polar Bears International, Don Streuber, Vice Chair Board of Directors Assiniboine Park Conservancy.

Photo courtesy of Assiniboine Park Zoo

The IPBCC is a partnership among the Assiniboine Park Conservancy, PBI, and Manitoba Conservation.

Polar Bears International has a long history of promoting conservation efforts, including outreach through innovative classroom and on-the-ground education programs. Soon they will assist zoos holding polar bears by providing care and housing for wild individuals in need of intervention for a host of reasons.

Bears from this unique population can't be rehabilitated, because according to PBI President and CEO, Robert Buchanan, "At this point we do not have the ability to return orphaned cubs to the wild and know that they would survive long."

Some adult bears will be returned to the wild and others will be provided sanctuary and used to augment the existing captive gene pool in zoological parks and other captive wildlife facilities.

Emergency response unit for bears in distress

This center will serve as an international resource and authority for polar bear husbandry science, operate as an emergency response unit for bears in distress, which is in increasingly more common in a compromised habitat, and provide a location for field biologists and husbandry professionals alike to convene for formal meetings and workshops, as well informal opportunities to exchange information.

The center will cost Canada $4.5 million, with funding provided by the government (Province of Manitoba) and public and private donors.

The facility will include two adjoining units. The IPBCC Transition Centre, which serves as temporary accommodations for rescued, orphaned, or compromised bears, will include three adjoining "yards," five indoor holding dens, as well as conditioning and assessment areas. An adjoining 5,000-square-foot public education, research, and administration building will be connected to the Transition Centre by a breezeway.

Robert Buchanan said that "Manitoba is the natural location for such a facility because the province has taken a leadership role in polar bear conservation. The Manitoba town of Churchill is known worldwide as the Polar Bear Capital of the World and Winnipeg serves as the gateway to that community. Manitoba is also a world leader in climate change and arctic ecosystem research through its three universities and the Churchill Northern Studies Centre."

In a follow-up to this post the author will interview Dr. Steve Amstrup who recently joined Polar Bears International as their Senior Scientist.

Jordan Schaul is a conservation biologist and a collection curator with the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. He received his PhD in conservation/veterinary preventive medicine from Ohio State University and a master's degree in zoology. He is a fellow of the Conservation Science Institute, an affiliate of the Pew Fellowship Program in Marine Science. He is a council member (ex officio) of the International Association for Bear Research and Management (IBA), a member and coordinator for education and outreach for the Bear Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, an advisor to the Bear Taxon Advisory Group of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, correspondent editor and captive bear news correspondent for International Bear News, and member of the advisory council of the National Wildlife Humane Society, which promotes high standards for wild carnivore care and welfare among private sanctuaries in North America. He is the creator of the Zoo Peeps brand which hosts a blog for the global zoo and aquarium community and two wildlife conservation oriented radio programs. He enrolled in clinical degree programs in veterinary medicine and has been on leave to pursue interests in animal management/husbandry science and conservation education.

Read more blog posts by Jordan Schaul.

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By Bryan Christy

On Monday, September 6, the world's most notorious wildlife dealer, Anson Wong of Malaysia, was sentenced to prison after a lock on his suitcase containing legally protected snakes broke on an airport conveyor belt.

From the island of Penang, Wong operates one of the world's largest legal reptile supply companies, which he has used in the past as a front to smuggle critically endangered wildlife from Australia, China, Madagascar, New Zealand, South America, and elsewhere. His offerings have included snow leopard pelts, panda bear skins, rhino horn, rare birds, and Komodo dragons.

Wong's conviction this week is a first for him in Malaysia, but it is not the first time he has been caught. In the 1990s Wong was the target of Operation Chameleon, a five-year undercover operation by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service that is widely considered the most successful in U.S. history.

Wong confessed and served more than five years for his smuggling. In 2003 he was released from U.S. prison, returned to Penang, and took over the reins of a company his wife had managed for him while he was in prison. Together, they have also run a zoo.

Read Bryan Christy's article, The Kingpin, in the January 2010 issue of National Geographic Magazine.

Wong's arrest and conviction are the latest in a remarkable set of legal actions taken this year by the Malaysian government, spurred by wildlife NGOs, committed individuals, and the media.

Wong was prosecuted under the country's new International Trade in Endangered Species Act, which was used for the first time last month to ensnare two Malagasy women. They were caught at Kuala Lumpur International Airport smuggling critically endangered radiated tortoises, plowshare tortoises, and other wildlife into Malaysia in their suitcases.

This summer, parliament further strengthened Malaysia's legal framework for protecting wildlife by updating the country's national conservation law for the first time since 1972. These new laws, and the willingness of prosecutors and judges to apply them, are models of change.

Wildlife trafficking may be the world's most profitable form of transnational organized crime. The reason is not money alone, although the profit margins can be spectacular. The reason is the low risk: When it comes to wildlife trafficking, there is little chance of getting caught. Around the world, law enforcement dedicated to wildlife smuggling is woefully undermanned and underfunded. And even when smugglers are caught, the most common penalty they face is a fine, often no larger than a parking ticket.

Wong was sentenced to six months in prison and fined 190,000 Malaysian ringgit (U.S.$61,000). The Malagasy women each got a year. Wong's lawyer argued for leniency because it was his first offense in Malaysia, which it was, but only because the wildlife department has never brought a case against him. Instead, his arrest was the work of an airline security officer, who noticed the broken lock and checked for damage.

The government seized Wong's laptop and his cell phone. If examined correctly, they could break open global wildlife smuggling--including connections to government officials around the world--Wong has long boasted about. The devices should be investigated by a team that includes officials independent of the wildlife department, as well as international law enforcement.

This week's conviction is an important step forward, with positive implications for wildlife around the world. But it is not the result of work by Malaysia's wildlife department, whose leadership has in the past defended Anson Wong as an honest businessman. Wong is not Malaysia's only wildlife trafficker, either. Wong's conviction is a sign that Malaysian law has sharper teeth. Now law enforcement needs a stronger bite.

Bryan Christy is an investigative journalist and author who has spent years focused on environmental crimes.  A Fulbright Scholar, he attended Pennsylvania State University, Cornell University Graduate School, University of Michigan Law School, and the University of Tokyo Law School. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., including in the Executive Office of the President. Mr. Christy is the author of The Lizard King: The True Crimes and Passions of the World's Greatest Reptile Smugglers.  In researching that book, he was bitten between the eyes by a blood python, chased by a mother alligator, sprayed by a bird-eating tarantula, and ejaculated on by a Bengal tiger. His article, The Kingpin, exposing wildlife trader Anson Wong, appeared in the January 2010 issue of National Geographic.

Photo by Michael Bryant/2004 Playboy

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National Geographic Emerging Explorer Albert Yu-Min Lin uses a suite of non-invasive technologies, like satellite imagery, remote sensors, and ground-penetrating radar, to explore the world's wild places without disturbing them and set the stage for their future conservation. Nat Geo News Watch contributor Brian Handwerk interviewed Lin about the opportunities presented by innovation and technology to help us be better stewards of our planet.

By Brian Handwerk

Albert Lin engaged on a legendary adventure--a non-invasive search for the tomb of Genghis Khan, known as the Valley of the Khans Project. With high-tech help, including valuable online input from thousands of "armchair explorers," he hopes to close in on the prize. But the Calit2-based engineer also has his eyes on a much bigger picture, a world where rapidly developing technological tools provide a powerful force for positive change but also the danger of disconnection with what it means to be human.

Your brand of exploration covers new ground, but doesn't it also explore the ways in which new technologies might be used?

Engineering has driven exploration since the beginning of time. Alexander Graham Bell, a founder of the National Geographic Society, was an engineer and he used the tools of technology to try to drive more understanding of the world.

Today the tools we have are improving every single day at an exponential rate, and the pace of innovation is so fast we have to remember not to pigeonhole. We're exposed to so much innovation, so much cool stuff is going on, that it's hard to sift through it all and find out where opportunities lie. But it's possible and the opportunities are much greater than ever before.

"I don't want humanity to become some type of big machine or human computer."

On the other hand, if we forget the point of all this development and progress then we're just going to end up making things faster, lighter, and stronger. I don't want humanity to become some type of big machine or human computer. My feeling is that as technology progresses we can choose to use it to try to understand more about what sets us apart, what makes us human.

How are you using technologies to that end in your search for Genghis Khan's tomb?

What we are able to do is to apply technologies developed for different fields, like satellite remote-sensing, unmanned aircraft, and geophysical surveying. Satellite imaging wasn't developed for archaeological purposes but it can be used for them--and why not? We're trying to use technology to do a non-invasive, remote sensing search--we didn't roll over a single stone--and answer one of the greatest mysteries of our time.

With the Valley of the Khans project we're hoping to gain knowledge in a way that maintains respect for local traditions of not disturbing any sacred sites. And as we learn about these areas I hope we can also provide a tool, the knowledge which Mongolians can use to protect them, perhaps by creating special areas like UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Photograph courtesy Calit2, Erik Jepsen 

You've also used communications and networking technology to harness the power of many human brains working together right?

That was one example of how technology drives exploration. We got the public to look at millions of bits of high-resolution satellite images online and try to tell us what they saw that was weird or different in the landscape. People would look at satellite images and tell us where to go, and in Mongolia we would physically jump on a horse and go check it out.

We could have probably used a computer-generated algorithm to look at those images but we didn't even know what we were looking for, and we would never have been able to get those algorithms to use human intuition to look at photographs and know what's weird or interesting. The collective intelligence of people online was more powerful as a whole than any computer could ever have been. This is how technology is going back and utilizing what is human to go beyond its limitations, and it could be done for all types of exploration while getting people to actively participate.

You'd like to take these kinds of tools beyond exploration to accomplish conservation and other ends?

Absolutely. Access to information is becoming somewhat unlimited. A universe has been created out of our minds and you've got entire societies being built that supersede societies that exist in reality. Networks are developing into platforms that change the way we look at everything, from politics to entertainment to education, because of this mind-numbing expansive and complete technological revolution.

"A universe has been created out of our minds and you've got entire societies being built that supersede societies that exist in reality."

So you have people from all types of cultures, around the world, collaborating on something. That crowd is being developed into a social network and we see now that social networks can actually be guided to specific tasks. You can ask them to vote in a presidential campaign or find out whether they like one kind of Coke can over another kind of Coke can. You can tell them to look for an anomaly in some mass of imagery.

These networks gain a collective consciousness, an ability to work as one big massive blob of minds, which allows us to have a group consciousness about what we really care about.

So what if we can use the development of technology to get people to really care about the planet? That would be the most powerful step and that's what we saw in a case like the oil spill. They attached a web cam to the (wellhead) and that brought it home to everybody. On the Internet it was easy for everyone to see and all of a sudden it was relevant and real and people cared. Global monitoring of the environment is something that we need to think about very carefully as information networks evolve. It could be a very powerful tool.

What worries you about the pace of technological change?

I would hate to think the technologies we've developed would be used to make us think less. But these tools are so powerful in so many ways that they can distract us and make us forget what's important because everything is so easy now.

Now with technology, in a lot of ways we've developed such detachment from our beginnings that most people today have never killed an animal but eat a ton of meat. They've never planted a seed but they eat all sorts of wheat products. We've gotten to the point where some of the things developed out of all this extra time are starting to destroy the foundations from which everything began and making it impossible to maintain the resources that we need to survive on a long-term sustainable basis.

So technology may pose a problem of sustainability?

One of the biggest revolutions in technology that will define us in our age is the fact that we've created an unprecedented network of information transfer. People can exchange information across oceans in a matter of seconds. Our responsibility as humans is to use that network of information towards the goals of a collective consciousness--and in my mind what's most needed is maintaining sustainable development as we go forward.

We've lost focus on that and we need to be thinking about it more than ever. So many things we see today, cars, computers, satellites, didn't exist at this level 100 years ago. If this trend continues how is the planet going to look after the next 100 years?

"The technologies we've developed depend so much on resources that might not always be there that we could create a house on stilts that could soon lose its foundation."

Unless we start using this tool, communication and social networks, to really think together about how we can steward the planet in a responsible way then we're heading towards a collision course. The technologies we've developed depend so much on resources that might not always be there that we could create a house on stilts that could soon lose its foundation.

On the other hand, do you see that same technology offering hope for the future?

I am hopeful. Inspiration happens in the mind of a single individual. With the technology we have today innovation happens at the level of a couple of people having a conversation.

Genghis Khan took technologies from one part of his world and brought them together with technologies from another part of that world to write one of the great stories of human expansion. But now we can take cutting-edge technologies and combine them with literally the click of a button.

If we all want to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, for example, I am sure there is a way in which collectively we can get the millions of points of innovation that exist and put them into a framework that meets that goal. So technology has made change easier--but the next step is to be sure we do it correctly.

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The past 24 hours in sports have had an enormous amount of impactful news. Last night, number three ranked Boise State played number 10 ranked Virginia Tech in Fed Ex Field and rallied in the last minute to beat them 33-30.  Both quarterbacks Kellen Moore of Boise and Tyrod TAylor of VA Tech played great games for their respective teams. It is widely assumed that if the Broncos run the table and they likely will because they're schedule is easy, there will be a spot for them in the national title game.

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An international partnership is "racing against the clock" to ensure the survival of the last 48 Javan rhinos on Earth by carving out a safe haven in the dense jungles of Indonesia's Ujung Kulon National Park, the International Rhino Foundation (IRF) said today.

"The species' entire viable population, living on the island of Java, is quite literally stuck between a rock and a hard place," IRF said in a news statement.

According to IRF:

"In 1883 Ujung Kulon and the surrounding areas were decimated by the eruption of Krakatau, one of the most violent volcanic events in modern times. Anak Krakatau ("son of Krakatau") remains active in the area causing great concern for conservationists.

"Over the next two years, the Javan rhinos' habitat at the park will undergo improvements to help protect the species from extinction caused by a single natural disaster or introduced disease. The International Rhino Foundation (IRF) and its partners are creating 9,884 acres (4,000 ha) of expanded habitat for Javan rhinos in Ujung Kulon, which should encourage population growth."

"Having 'all the eggs in one basket' isn't a good thing for any species."

"Having 'all the eggs in one basket' isn't a good thing for any species," said Susie Ellis, executive director of the International Rhino Foundation. "With the help of the Rhino Foundation of Indonesia, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), Save the Rhino, and the Indonesian government, we have committed to improving the available habitat for Javan rhinos to increase and spread out the population."

Late last year, the partners also commissioned a habitat assessment to evaluate potential translocation sites in Java, IRF explained.

 

$300,000 needed for Operation Javan Rhino

"This assessment's first recommendation was to create a Javan Rhino Study and Conservation Area in Gunung Honje area (in the eastern part of the park) so that rhinos could fully utilize the Park's land," IRF said.

"As a result, IRF has launched Operation Javan Rhino to help raise the remaining U.S.$300,000 needed to complete this effort. Donations will be used to plant rhino food plants, create water sources and wallows, construct guard posts and patrol routes, and hire anti-poaching units to patrol the area. IRF will provide field updates of the on-the-ground efforts taking place in Ujung Kulon to make the new habitat suitable and safe for Javan rhinos."

"Our team on the ground is already beginning improvements to Gunung Honje's habitat to make more of the park suitable for the rhinos. We will construct an electric fence, small bridges, and new patrol routes," said Widodo Ramono, executive director of the Rhino Foundation of Indonesia. "We will also improve the habitat by removing invasive plants and providing an improved and reliable water supply."

Javan rhinos are difficult to find in their dense rain forest habitat, even for seasoned experts, IRF explained. "Over the past 14 years, Rhino Protection Units have kept track of the rhino population daily, usually by following signs such as dung and footprints. This intense monitoring and protection has essentially eliminated losses from poaching. In collaboration with the Park, WWF Indonesia has set up a number of video-camera traps, which are providing important information about the population."

Better protection for rhinos

"We are in the process of expanding intensive management of the Gunung Honje area," said Agus Priambudi, director of Ujung Kulon National Park and active partner in the makeover. "A number of encroachers were moved from within the park, and we are constructing new guard posts so that the Gunung Honje area is better protected."

Priambudi added that the park will intensify the camera trap work with 60 cameras donated by the Aspinall Foundation in January. "Even though poaching has been eradicated in Ujung Kulon, anti-poaching units remain watchful. Rhino poaching in Africa has reached a 16-year high, and the loss of a Javan rhino to poachers in Vietnam in May weighs heavily on the partners' minds," IRF said.

"The data provided by the camera traps are helping us to determine how many rhinos are left in Ujung Kulon," said Adhi Rachmat Hariyadi, site manager for WWF Indonesia's project in the Park. "So far, from the videos we have analyzed, we have identified 27 individual rhinos and extrapolated a maximum of 47 animals in the Park, which still needs to be confirmed by ground surveys."

Threat of rhino poaching

Rhino poaching is a high-stakes endeavor undertaken by well-organized crime networks that sometimes include corrupt government officials and foreign diplomats, according to IRF.

"Rhinos are killed for the sole intention of selling their horns on the black market," said Cathy Dean, executive director of Save the Rhino. "By funding field projects and through education, our goal is to deliver widespread benefits to the rhinos, their ecosystems and the local communities that benefit from conservation activities."

Rhino experts agree that expanding the usable habitat in Ujung Kulon is the important first step in saving Javan rhinos, IRF said. "The next key step will be translocating animals from Ujung Kulon and establishing a second population elsewhere in Indonesia so that the species can be protected from natural and human-caused disasters, and ultimately extinction."

Posted by David Braun from media material submitted by IRF.

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Ancient people the world over illustrated rock walls with paintings or carvings evocative of their environment and belief systems. But even as we begin to understand more about the rock artists and the images they left us, new questions about their eternal messages are being raised.

By Andrew Howley

Tarascon-sur-Ariège, France--On the eve of the 70th anniversary of the discovery of the cave paintings in Lascaux, France, experts from around the world are gathered this week at the Park of Prehistory in the Pyrenees to discuss the beautiful and enigmatic remnants of the world of prehistoric art.

Orchestrated by the International Federation of Rock Art Organizations (IFRAO), the conference pulls together representatives from the group's 49 member organizations, scholars, journalists, and enthusiasts from around the world.

The goal is to spread knowledge from each region to all the others and to help develop a new understanding of prehistoric art as a whole.

As event host and award-winning author and scholar Jean Clottes said, this gathering is an "occasion to learn--which is the best thing we can do as researchers." He quickly added that it's also to have fun and get to know each other, and throughout the day, learning and camaraderie have gone hand in hand, with off-handed stories inspiring fascinating side-notes (and vice-versa) everywhere you turn.

The conference is taking place in one of the richest regions of paleolithic cave art in Europe, but the scope of research is much larger.

Caption: The entrance to the park, with the banner for the conference and participants gathering in the morning.

Photo by Andrew Howley

Presenters from every continent besides Antarctica have come to discuss the art of their respective regions, and to help synthesize a new understanding of what was truly a worldwide tradition for tens of thousands of years.

"Humans, wherever they lived, made marks on the rocks nearby, and those images have made marks on humans ever since."

For all of the fascinating regional differences, the inescapable fact is that humans, wherever they lived, made marks on the rocks nearby, and those images have made marks on humans ever since.

A painting depicts prehistoric rock artists painting the Lascaux Cave.

National Geographic illustration by Jack Unruh  

Much like with Stonehenge, the greatest impact prehistoric art tends to have is one of inspiring a sense of mystery. The paintings and carvings are seen as impressive and interesting, but not something we can ever know much about.

That sense of eternal mystery is part of what makes it appealing. But scratch the surface, and there are amazing new answers being uncovered, and perhaps more compellingly, new questions being raised.

Here at the Park of Prehistory, these questions and answers seem to be revolving around three main points.

Worldwide search for sites

The first, mentioned above, is the universality of this art form among cultures. Upon the discovery of the caves in France a century ago, little was known or spoken about rock art. The academic interest in Europe has sparked a worldwide search for such sites though, and for increased understanding of sites that have been known locally from the earliest times.

Rich troves of paintings and carvings are now being studied in India, the Amazon, Scandinavia, Africa, and throughout Asia. As knowledge of each example has spread, our understanding of all of them has grown.

A Fremont petroglyph depicting bowmen hunting bighorn sheep, Cottonwood Canyon, Utah.

National Geographic stock photo by James P. Blair

Women and children lent a hand

The second is the new recognition of the universality of who created the art within cultures. For a long time in the West, it was assumed that cave art was made by cave men, and that women simply did the proverbial gathering work of a hunter-gatherer society.

Recent research revealed that many rock art handprints are likely to be female however, making the idea of exclusively male art creation highly unlikely .(See related: PICTURES: Prehistoric European Cave Artists Were Female).

Perhaps even more interesting and endearing however, is the growing evidence of children being present in the caves and even having a hand (literally) in the creation process, as Leslie van Gelder of Walden University, New Zealand mentioned today.

  Ancient Native Americans made these handprints on the wall of Canyon del Muerto, Arizona.

National Geographic stock photo by Bruce Dale

Relationship between humans and animals

Finally, many of the attempts to understand the meaning of these images of animals made by humans come down to understanding the distinction (or lack of one) between humans and animals.

As we've found that animals possess many of the traits we used to think were exclusively human such as communication, self-recognition, and tool-making, certain lines are being blurred that not too long ago may not have even existed at all.

Finnish ethnographer Juha Pentikäinen related the concept among shamans in Siberia that bears are not just human-like, but that they actually are human. Or as Dario Seglie, director of the Italian Centro Studi e Museo d'Arte Preistorica said, we may well need to define "human" and "animal" differently than we generally do.

Understanding how people of today, and people of long ago have seen this relationship may help us understand what it is that inspired the creation of this art, and what it is that makes it so compelling to this day.

Throughout this week, dozens of experts will be tackling these questions. Follow along each day as we bring you some of the answers they come to, and the new questions that arise in the process.

Petroglyphs on Easter Island, Polynesia, preserve rituals of vanished bird-man cult.

National Geographic stock photo by Thomas J. Abercrombie. 

Andrew Howley is a senior producer for National Geographic Digital Media, responsible for editing the National Geographic website home page and the front page of National Geographic Daily News. He also manages the National Geographic Facebook page, which has more than 1,700,000 followers. Prior to joining National Geographic, Andrew was a programming manager at America Online, which included writing promotions for the Welcome Screen. He received a BA in Anthropology (focus on Archaeology) from the College of William & Mary, Virginia. His personal interests are history reading, painting, running, and developing educational projects.

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One of the world's smallest seahorse species could disappear due to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and subsequent clean-up efforts, conservationists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) warned today.

NGS stock photo of dwarf seahorse by Robert Sisson

"The dwarf seahorse (Hippocampus zosterae), found only in waters off the Gulf Coast, now faces a bleak future after its much of its habitat was destroyed by the spill," ZSL said in a news release.

"Scientists are worried that the clean-up process could further diminish dwarf seahorse populations and other marine life," ZSL added.

Conservationists from the ZSL Project Seahorse team are urging BP to minimize the use of chemical dispersants and the burning of oil during the clean-up process, which is expected to take years, ZSL said.

The conservation charity said:

"Dwarf seahorses, which are less than one inch long, produce few young, making them vulnerable to environmental change.

"The population of dwarf seahorses is expected to decrease dramatically during the clean-up, after the spill exposed them to high levels of oil toxins and destroyed large swaths of their food-rich habitat.

"To slow the oil spill's movement, BP has burned off the oil caught in seagrass mats floating in open water. While most seahorses live in seagrass beds in the coastal shallows of the Gulf, others live in these loose mats of vegetation offshore.

"Burning these mats has killed many marine animals while depriving others of their habitat and exposing them to further toxicity."

NGS stock photo of dwarf seahorse by Robert Sisson

"Seagrass is vital to the long-term health of coastal ecosystems, sheltering marine animals, acting as fish nurseries, improving water quality, and preventing erosion. In extreme cases where seahorses are at high risk of poisoning such as this one, seagrass mats and beds can be cut to reduce toxic exposure," said Heather Koldewey, ZSL's program manager for the International Marine and Freshwater Conservation Programme.

"However we are urging BP to continue to use booms in the clean-up to isolate the oil slicks. These can be skimmed, left to evaporate, or treated with biological agents like fertilisers, which promote the growth of micro-organisms that biodegrade oil," Koldewey said.

"It's absolutely critical that measures be taken to preserve the seagrass mats and beds during this vulnerable time."

Heather Masonjones, a seahorse biologist at the University of Tampa, said: "It's absolutely critical that measures be taken to preserve the seagrass mats and beds during this vulnerable time.

"Incidents such as the explosion of the Mariner Energy oil platform, in the Gulf of Mexico only last Thursday, demonstrate how we must act quickly and carefully to give these fragile marine species the best chance of survival."

ZSL is an international scientific, conservation and educational charity. It runs two zoos, including London Zoo, carries out scientific research at the Institute of Zoology, and is involved in field conservation internationally.

Posted by David Braun from media material submitted by ZSL.

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Anita Baker’s voice is like a warm blanket on a cold night.  It’s so comforting and welcoming that the sound instantly bathes you in a mellifluous delight.  Though I had seen Baker in concert in Raleigh about seven years ago, I couldn’t pass up the chance to see her again during her recent appearance at Wolf Trap.  Her personal life has changed dramatically since I saw her last, but her talents had not.  She is still the queen of R & B to me.

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Colin Chartres, co-author of the new book Out of Water: From Abundance to Scarcity and How to Solve the World's Water Problems talks to National Geographic News about how the planet can steer clear of a water crisis.

By Tasha Eichenseher
Reporting from World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden

This post is part of a special National Geographic news series on global water issues.

Colin Chartres, director of the 25-year-old International Water Management Institute (IWMI), and co-author of the new book Out of Water: From Abundance to Scarcity and How to Solve the World's Water Problems talks to National Geographic News about how the planet can steer clear of budding water and food crises.

In your new book, you and co-author Samyuktha Varma outline six steps world, country, and local leaders need to take in order for the humanity to avoid a paralyzing water crisis. We hear about the impending water crisis in the news, but how close are we really? Are events like the Russian wildfires and Pakistani floods part of the crisis, or harbingers of what's to come on a more regular basis?

Photograph courtesy IWMI

These events are, in my view, manifestations of what we can expect as climate change begins to bite. Potential scenarios will include greater climate variability with more droughts and more intense rainfall events. Given that food supply is so dependent on water and that often more than 70 percent of a country's water resources go to agriculture, we will see increasingly frequent food crises usually of a supply and demand nature that increase prices and impact the poor most significantly. We had one in 2007-2008 and there are some signs that another food crisis is currently emerging.

Today a third of people face water scarcity, according to experts. What does that mean exactly?

These people are in countries that physically use nearly all their available water (physical water scarcity), or in countries where there is water, but there has not been enough investment to deliver it to where it is needed (economic water scarcity). In physically scarce countries, as demand grows, there will be increasing competition for water between cities and agriculture. There are tens of millions of people in developing countries worldwide whose health and livelihoods are suffering because of lack of access to enough water for their everyday needs, growing their food, and watering their animals. Whilst in some years they do have enough water, in others they struggle because of drought.

Photograph of Colin Chartres courtesy IWMI

What is the connection between the expected global water crisis and climate change?

Climate change impacts will exacerbate the water crisis, but they are just one of several factors affecting water supplies. Population growth, dietary change (to foods requiring more water to produce), competition for water from biofuel production and increased demand from urban areas are already creating problems exemplified by declining groundwater tables, closed river basins (which no longer flow into the sea because of increasing extraction).

Climate change will add to these over the next decade and we will struggle to maintain and increase food production in the face of more frequent floods and droughts. Additionally, the environment will suffer, as it usually gets forgotten when water is allocated. This will mean a decline in the important environmental services that help to keep our water clean, provide fish habitat and nurseries and maintain biodiversity.

(See flood and drought photos and read "Booming Middle-Class Diet May Stress Asia's Water Needs.")

Your six-step solution to avoiding the crisis is: 1) gather high-quality data about water resources; 2) take better care of the environment; 3) reform how water resources are governed; 4) revitalize how water is used for farming; 5) better manage urban and municipal demands for water; and 6) involve marginalized people in water management. Easier said than done? How much human and financial resource needs to go into implementing these solutions? How do we start? And what is the number one obstacle we face?

We have to recognize the value of water. Valuing water does not necessarily mean putting a price on it, but for those that can pay this needs to be done. It means, ensuring that water is recognized as fundamental not only to life and health, but to the economy in general. I don't believe that lack of finance is the only obstacle to ensuring we can cope with the water crisis. Whilst increasing investment in developing countries in water supply and sanitation is vital..., what is equally critical is that we learn to increase the productivity of water via more efficient use in all sectors of the economy and, in many cases, increased recycling and reuse of the water that we have. In agriculture, the number one water user, there is a tremendous need in developing countries for knowledge, capacity building and technical and economic assistance that is required to deliver doubling or even trebling of crop yields from the same amount of rainfall or irrigation water.

Do you remain hopeful, or do you see a world in 10, 20, 30 years where more people are dying due to lack of water or wars over it?

I am optimistic that if we take the current warnings about water scarcity and its impacts seriously we can overcome it. Surprisingly, water has rarely, if ever, been fought over in wars. In many cases, transboundary water agreements have worked for decades. However, as water becomes scarcer and more precious, there will be increasing tension between sectors of the economy, communities, states and nations over access to water. As well as legal agreements we are going to need considerable scientific and general innovation. This is starting to happen, but needs to be accelerated.

The end of smallpox vaccinations in sub-Saharan Africa three decades ago appears to have opened the door to monkeypox, another deadly disease caused by a related virus.

By Ford Cochran

Humans have lived, and died, with smallpox for thousands of years. Variola major, the more lethal of two viruses responsible for smallpox, claimed at least 300 million human lives during the 20th century alone. Eradication of the dreaded disease outside of laboratories stands as one of the most important achievements of modern medicine.

But according to a new study, the end of smallpox vaccinations in sub-Saharan Africa three decades ago appears to have opened the door to monkeypox, a kindred killer that's appearing with greater frequency among people who live, work, and hunt in the forests where rodents harbor the disease. Given human mobility and the potential evolution of monkeypox to more virulent and transmissible forms, experts worry that such outbreaks have the potential to spread rapidly across the globe.

I spoke with UCLA epidemiologist Anne Rimoin, the study's lead author, and co-author, Global Virus Forecasting Initiative founder and director, and National Geographic Emerging Explorer Nathan Wolfe about the implications of their findings, published this week by the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Rimoin, what are some of the most important things people should understand about your findings on the increased prevalence of monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of Congo?

First, this is the culmination of many years of research by many people, including public health colleagues in the DRC. It's important to state that up front.

I think a couple of things are very interesting about the work. First, the eradication of smallpox from the planet 30 years ago allowed us to stop vaccination. That's the purpose of eradication, right? You get rid of the disease, and then you can focus on other things.

Here's the irony: Our great victory over smallpox allowed this new disease, monkeypox, to flourish. There are always unintended consequences of one health intervention leading to something else. There's a cost and a benefit for any intervention.

Another important thing my study brings into focus is that monkeypox emerged under the rader because disease surveillance wasn't happening. This likely happened steadily over the years, but in a place where there's little health infrastructure. Disease surveillance is one of the last priorities when health care workers are doing all they can just to care for sick patients and provide vaccinations.

Many diseases have emerged in the Congo. Diseases emerge in places that are the poorest of the poor, with no disease surveillance. So here, we had no idea of the magnitude of this as it emerged because no one was watching.

No one had anticipated that other diseases might be held in check by the smallpox vaccine?

Back when they stopped smallpox vaccination, they determined after a few years that monkeypox didn't pose much of a threat. But those studies of transmissibility were done when there were very few people who hadn't been immunized, just kids born between 1980 and 1986.

Since then, there's likely to have been a waning of immunity to pox viruses among those who were immunized, and many people never have been immunized.

What we're seeing today is also an increase far above and beyond anything we'd expect to see just because people are exposed regularly to infected animals. This suggests there's likely to be a lot more secondary transmission--person to person rather than animal to person--than anyone suspected.

When we evaluate threats, the two most important things to know are how transmissible something is and how virulent it is. How likely is it to spread from person to person? Has the incidence of the disease increased because people have done something to make themselves more susceptible, or is it because the virus has adapted and become more virulent, more capable of spreading, or both?

Before we thought this was a sporadic infection that only happened from time to time in outbreaks. But now we know that in these deep, remote places in the Congo, it's relatively common. That's a big cause for concern. We're sounding a warning.

There's already been at least one outbreak of monkeypox in the United States, correct?

Yes. Back in 2003, we had an outbreak un the U.S. associated with imported rodents that were kept next to American prairie dogs. The prairie dogs became infected, then became what we call amplifying hosts because they were able to maintain the virus in them and then to infect their owners. Dozens of people became sick with monkeypox.

No fatalities occurred in the U.S. outbreak. That could have been related to better nutrition, better health of the population, better health care. But there are two known strains of monkeypox virus. The strain that was introduced here was a West African strain that's known to be milder, whereas the strain in Central Africa where we work is much more virulent with a much greater associated mortality.

The outbreak here in 2003 shows very clearly how easily microbes can cross the globe and become established, not just in human populations. Now that we've eliminated oceans as barriers, there are many opportunities for pathogens to leap from continent to continent, to become quickly amplified in other animals, and to spread rapidly in new places where we've never seen them before.

It's a scenario that's become all too common in recent years. We've seen it with West Nile virus in the United States. We've seen it with SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). This was our concern with avian influenza, a concern with anything that has vectors we can't control. The Andromeda Strain is an extreme fictional example, "popular press," but the concept at base is absolutely right on: We've seen it happen numerous times.

"Monkeypox" is a misnomer, by the way: It was first discovered as a pathogen in monkeys in 1950, but the reservoir for the disease is actually rodents. There are other human populations in constant contact with these animals, and what we're seeing in the Congo is just an example of what could happen anywhere.

Since smallpox vaccine appears to prevent most monkeypox infections, should we start immunizing people against smallpox again?

In terms of vaccination policy, it's always important to balance the risks. There's a cost-benefit to absolutely everything. And our choices depend on what price we're willing to pay. You're always weighing the risks associated with a vaccine with the risks of acquiring a disease. Right now routine vaccination isn't happening with many of the people who are getting monkeypox, and adding another vaccine might divert funds that could be used for other programs and health interventions that might benefit them more.

We really need to understand how transmissible and how virulent monkeypox is and what kind of a threat this is signaling before we can make informed decisions about what to do with vaccinations. If we find that monkeypox is becoming more transmissible, becoming more virulent, we may decide that it's worth the cost of vaccination to stop this virus in its tracks before it has the chance to gain traction and go elsewhere.

Dr. Wolfe, how did you become involved in this research?

Anne and I have a long-term collaboration. We've been working together for ages. The Global Virus Forecasting Initiative exists to catch viral diseases early before they spread, and the DRC is one of our listening posts.

Viruses regularly jump over from animal populations to humans. The situation we have now across the planet is one single connected population. We live in an interconnected world. Viruses which we think are off in distant lands really aren't so distant any more. Natural quarantine is increasingly absent, and little bits of viral chatter--events in which viruses cross from animal into human populations--are more and more likely to have a global effect.

Almost certainly, in this case, where there's smoke, there's fire. This is an ecologically-engaged community. There's a lot of contact with wild animals. People in these regions traditionally hunt local animals: If you're in central Africa, you'll hunt the fauna that's in the forest. What's really changed today is that instead of many many isolated communities, there's sort of a single population the viruses can get into and burn through.

We need to up our game substantially.

Photographs of a child with monkeypox and of Anne Rimoin interviewing a youth with monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo courtesy Anne Rimoin

Ford Cochran directs Mission Programs online for National Geographic. He has written for National Geographic magazine and NG Books, and edits BlogWild--a digest of Society exploration, research, and events--and the Ocean Now blog. Ford studied English literature at the College of William and Mary and biogeochemistry at Harvard and Yale, with a focus on volcanoes, forests, and long-term controls on atmospheric CO2. He was an assistant professor of geology and environmental science at the University of Kentucky before joining the National Geographic staff.
 

More posts by Ford Cochran

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"Running Dry" author Jonathan Waterman talks about his struggle with the Colorado River and his mother's death.

By Jonathan Waterman

This post is part of a special National Geographic news series on global water issues.

Photograph of Pete McBride crossing delta, with fish skeleton deposited by high tide, by Jonathan Waterman.

In the spring of 2007, as I began preparing for a 1,450-mile journey down the Colorado River, my mother began her fight with rectal melanoma. Since 1976, with her support, I lived for long expeditions, partly for the adventure, but mostly to find meaning and hope amid a world that seemed increasingly disenfranchised from the value of wild places. The isolation and challenges of these journeys were all enveloping and gave me an in-depth sense of place, but on the Colorado River I would carry the baggage about my mother all the way to the sea.

That summer of 2007, because the cancer had metastasized, she had a walnut-sized tumor removed from her brain. I spent a couple of days reconnoitering the river's source at 10,000 feet on La Poudre Pass in my home state of Colorado. There on the continental divide in Rocky Mountain National Park, before the first trickle of water could reach the valley and flow west, a ditch dug more than a century ago sluiced a third of the river east. The "Grand Ditch" is the first of countless diversions we have allowed upon North America's most precipitous waterway. I channeled my anger into organization and preparation--the essential components of any successful expedition.

Photograph of a western grebe feeding a subadult on Lower Colorado River by Jonathan Waterman.

When mom fell and injured her hip, my brothers and I had to put her in a nursing home. I showed her the maps for my coming journey. I immersed myself into interviews of water experts, or reading reports and water-related books, including Cadillac Desert, A River No More, and Rivers of Empire. In December, before she stopped talking, my mom licked her lips in an attempt to wet her parched mouth and cheerfully conceded that she too was going on a long journey. As she made the final preparations, we brought her back home to die. Meanwhile, I arranged meetings and side trips that would supplement my own observations during the coming expedition. Life, as mom insisted, must flow onward.

Despite her denials and a long fight, my mother (still known by her tennis partners as "the Steel Magnolia") left in January, 2008. Her death left me in state of suspended and often wordless animation. To cope, I continued the sort of work she had always encouraged: plunging into my voyage of discovery from source to sea down the Colorado River.

I snowshoed back up to La Poudre Pass, and while carefully standing below the Grand Ditch, I flung her ashes into the snow so that she could accompany me downstream. The next morning I began paddling a three-pound packraft that would accompany me all the way to Mexico. I thought of my mother a lot during the 1,450-mile journey, wondering how her microbial essence could pass through the dams and diversions that disrupt the Colorado River. Like most grieving sons, I contemplated our differences along with all that she had given me. Although I stayed busy--interviewing researchers, rangers, Native Americans, boatmen, and water operators; confronting rapids; dealing with loneliness during 800 miles of paddling in solitude--I couldn't stop thinking about my mother. I fell into brief depressions. But mostly I received an education about the river ecosystem and water as an exploited resource: watching birds, learning about farm irrigation and municipal withdrawals of water, tracking animals, and touring dams.

 

I was surprised and elated to discover that many stretches of the riverine are still intact. Desert bighorn sheep supped from the river's edge in protected wildlife refuges and national parks. Brilliant stars in the night sky showed how "the American Nile" carves its path through a section of the southwest still largely free of light pollution. I paddled through dozens of recreation areas where boaters fished, motored, partied and celebrated water as if it would never run dry. I found restoration sites where workers had replaced invasive tamarisk with native willows. I photographed (and wrote in my journal about) polluted water, compromised reservoirs and aquifers, and people indifferent to the crisis of a diminishing river. At night, alone in my tent, I contemplated the ups and downs of the complex relationship I had with my mother.

Photograph of desert bighorn sheep on the river's edge in the Grand Canyon by Jonathan Waterman.

It took me five months to reach the delta. The river ran dry a couple miles south of the Mexican border in a brown foam of phosphates floating empty water bottles. I spent ten days walking to the sea with my friend Pete McBride. For two days, we paddled south in irrigation canals. In the wastewater of the Rio Hardy tributary, I infected my feet.

Eventually, the Sonoran Desert subsumed the delta in an endless tapestry of cracked mud, surrounded by Sea of Cortez tidal canals that resembled giant dendrites. The microbial remains of my mom--like the pulverized sands from the Rockies and the Grand Canyon that Pete and I stood upon--had stalled 1,420 miles upstream in the depths of Shadow Mountain or Granby Reservoirs.

I traveled the length of the river to write a book and to let readers know not only what remains but what we stand to lose. I used the journey as a retreat to grieve for my mother and ultimately paid tribute to her in the book--Running Dry is a hybrid of river history, adventure, and personal narrative. But I also went for fun and to explore my backyard, to become intimate with the river.

I have spent my adult years taking long wilderness journeys, immersing myself in nature if only to make sense of a world altered by population growth, industry, and the increasingly heavy footprint of humankind. On these expeditions, I often leave home jaded and tired, hoping to return enlightened and energized. More than mastery of the ice ax or paddle, in wild country or riverscapes we can discover new humility, hidden beauty, and unexpected meaning. Out there--where, according to Ecclesiastes: "all the rivers run into the sea"--we can find renewal, inspiration, and a comforting glimpse of eternity. We're flesh and blood, resigned to our three score and ten, but rivers are the lifeblood of the earth, created long before us, to remain long after we're gone.

Photograph of the Grand Ditch, sluicing Colorado River east over La Poudre Pass on the Continental Divide by Jonathan Waterman.

If there's only one thing I could share with the 30 million people who depend upon the Colorado River, it's this: If we have the power to wrest a river from the Delta, we also have the responsibility to restore it.

As for what I got out of the trip, I have let go of my mother. But losing our river is a death I cannot abide.

Read "How to Restore the Colorado River" in Jon's recent interview at Grist.org He is the author of ten nature/expedition books, including Running Dry: A Journey From Source to Sea Down the Colorado River. His Colorado River Project was sponsored by a National Geographic Expeditions Council Grant and New Belgium Brewing. This is his third River Notes post with National Geogaphic News Watch.

Read more blog posts by Jonathan Waterman.

Read more about the Colorado Delta on Alexandra Cousteau's Blue Planet Expedition website. Waterman recently accompanied Cousteau down stretches of the Colorado River.

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Comment

From DJ Jeffery:

This short read brought me to tears.  I am heading out today to find "Running Dry".  I'm anxious to hear more about Jonathan's physical and emotional journey.

So you don't drive a hybrid. But you can still get better mpg in the car you have.

Join the ranks of the hypermilers--people who compete over how much they can improve their fuel economy just by using better driving techniques. There are more of these techniques than you think--and they make a big difference. Here are tips from the website Ecomodder.com on how to maximize your miles.

Give the Brake a Break
One obvious intervention: Don't break hard at a traffic light. Don't waste your momentum--ease off the gas early and coast to a stop. The hypermilers have a whole rulebook on how to avoid braking. Turn wide, so you don't have to brake as hard. Anticipate changes in traffic lights, slowing as you approach in case a green turns red--or in case a red turns green, allowing you to coast slowly toward the light and accelerate when the car isn't completely stopped. And when you do stop, accelerate slowly--don't floor the gas pedal.

Hypermiling Starts Before You Even Start the Car
Taking stuff out of your trunk will lighten your car. Try putting bike racks on the back, not on top, where they add to drag. Or taking off roof racks you don't use. Check your tire pressure: Tires that aren't properly inflated produce too much friction on the road, slowing you down. Tire pressure drops with temperature, so check more often as the seasons change.

No More Idling
Idling means you're getting zero miles per gallon. It's actually better to turn off your engine (that's how hybrids work). Switch the key from "run" to "acc" (not "off"). (This works best in cars with a stick shift and no power steering.) An easier way to reduce idling is to go to gas stations at off-peak times, so you're not waiting for a pump. Avoid the drive-through. Get an E-Z Pass to slide right through toll booths instead of waiting in line.

And of course, do everything you can to avoid getting stuck in traffic. Plan your route ahead of time to avoid rush hour. On city streets, driving in the right lane may mean you end up having to navigate around buses making frequent stops and delivery vehicles double-parked in the street. Pick the lane of least resistance.

Plan Ahead
Run several errands on the same trip. Take the longest trip first. That way, your car warms up more and might not cool all the way down by the time you finish your errand. Starting a warm car is more efficient than getting a cold engine going.

To Draft Or Not to Draft
Drafting off trucks by driving close on their tails might increase efficiency, but it's dangerous and inconsiderate. (A smart hypermiler puts safety first.) But the physics of drafting can come in handy other ways. You can drive next to (and a little behind) trucks to let them reduce crosswinds. And sometimes following a slow-moving truck (at a safe distance) is helpful if you want to slow down without angering other drivers. After all, reducing speed is one of the best ways to improve your mileage.

Amenities and Add-Ons
You don't need your lights on during the day. Don't use four-wheel drive unless you really need it - four-wheel drive increases friction with the road, making your car work harder to move forward. Reduce your use of air conditioning by parking in the shade. Some hypermilers suggest using a beaded seat cover, which increases ventilation and might keep you from reaching for the AC.

But remember, keeping your windows open creates a lot of drag on the car, especially at highway speeds. You can open them in the city--but otherwise, it's best to use your vents.

Drive It Like You Bike It
If you also ride a bicycle, you'll notice a lot of these techniques feel familiar--you probably already do them on a bike. After all, the energy you're burning on a bike is your energy, and it's hard not to notice when you're wasting it. It wouldn't make sense to pedal as hard as you can to a red light and then brake hard. It goes without saying that tight turns on sidewalks force you to slow way down, as opposed to wide turns on streets, where you can keep your momentum going. You ride with as little extra weight as possible. You also avoid stops and starts--ever see those fixed-gear riders balancing at red lights without ever putting their feet down?

Hypermilers say they can improve their fuel efficiency easily by 35 percent. Now, can you go the extra mile?

--Tanya Snyder

Related:

Calculate Your Energy Diet

Green Guide's Travel & Transportation Hub

Cars Buying Guide

Photograph courtesy Lorenzo Menendez, My Shot

In Sacramento, they pick figs, kumquats, and plums from public trees. In New York, they harvest purslane--an edible flower--from the cracks in the sidewalk. Down south, it's fiddlehead ferns, and just about everywhere, people are picking black walnuts, wild mushrooms, and dandelion greens.

Urban foraging--gathering fruit, vegetables, and other useful things from parks, lawns, and sidewalks--isn't a new thing. But as more urbanites become aware of the free bounty surrounding them, new issues are--pardon the pun--cropping up. When a public park's berry patch is raided, whose responsibility is it to make sure there are some left for everyone to enjoy? What about pesticides?

The Institute for Culture and Ecology has been studying urban foragers since 2008 to understand how foraging fits into a city's ecosystem. The latest project, studying foragers in Seattle, kicked off in early 2010 with partial funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Since then, researcher Melissa Poe and her team have interviewed 35 foragers.

Among their findings:

This tiny group of foragers--just a small percentage of the people in Seattle who gather wild plants--together picks a whopping 250 different species of plants, year-round. Some have been gathering in Seattle for over 60 years. Most act as caretakers for their favorite spots, which they return to year after year.

Most popular item? "Right now, it's blackberry season," Poe said. Seattle is also home to the Oregon grape--more closely related to the barberry than an actual grape--and English ivy, an invasive vine that Seattle-area crafting groups weave into baskets.

How many people are doing this? It depends. Poe has identified 150 self-identified foragers, but "I don't think people consider what they do wild plant gathering," she told Green Guide.

"It's just what you do. There's a blackberry [plant] in the alley, so you pick it. The number of people who gather blackberries, I am positive, is over half of Seattle."

Foraging can be a risky business: in some municipalities, it's not allowed in public parks. Earlier this year, the New York Times' urban foraging columnist suggested that would-be gatherers pick day lily shoots from Central Park; the Times had to quickly post a clarification that picking plants from city parks was against the law.

"If 15 people decide to go harvest day lilies to stir-fry that night, you could wipe out the entire population of day lilies around the Central Park reservoir," Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe told the Times.

There's another risk: chemicals. "Most of the foragers we have talked to are expressing concerns about toxicity," Poe said. Public park managers aren't necessarily interested in preserving the edibility of the wild things that grow there--don't even start on whatever might grow in a median or alley. Park managers and city planners could make it easier for foragers, Poe suggested, by minimizing the chemicals sprayed or, at the very least, putting up signs to alert would-be foragers when pesticides are at their most potent.

But outweighing those risks? The food is free and would likely go to waste if not harvested. Foraging gets people outdoors, learning more about the environment. And the food is about as local as can be.

--Rachel Kaufman

Related:

Buy Into Bounty--Join a CSA

Green Guide's Food Hub

Seven Steps to Safer, Healthier Food

Photograph courtesy Chris Johns, National Geographic

Two big sharks were fished out of the Potomac River this week. Is the U.S. capital swimming with predators?

By David Braun

The Potomac, fondly nicknamed the "Nation's River" because it flows through Washington, D.C., is known for its hazards and treacherous currents. But if you can navigate those, and slip past the politicians, there may be something else lurking in the water: big sharks.

Photo of the shark caught in the Potomac courtesy of Christy Henderson, Buzz's Marina. 

Fisher Willy Dean caught an eight-foot shark in the Potomac River this week, NBC 4, a local television station, reported.

"Dean put out a net Monday at Cornfield Harbor in the Potomac three miles north of Point Lookout with hopes of catching cow-nosed rays for a Solomons Island Marina biologist. When he checked Monday night, everything seemed normal. But when he checked again Tuesday morning, he made a startling discovery," NBC 4 said.

"In the net was an eight-foot-long shark. He said it was a bull shark. According to National Geographic, experts consider them to be 'the most dangerous sharks in the world,'" NBC 4 added. (Read more about what Nat Geo says about bull sharks.)

Read the NBC 4 story.

Dean said the shark has been frozen while he considers what to do with it. He may mount it.

"I would not say it is common to catch sharks in the Potomac River but they are in the [Chesapeake] Bay. They feed on rays and are able to travel into fresher water which is why you see them in rivers," said Christy Henderson, who made the photographs of the shark on this page. She and her husband Michael Henderson own Buzz's Marina, which is near the Potomac mouth on the Maryland side of the Bay.

"The fisherman (Willy Dean) ties up at my pier and he called me and asked me to take pictures for him. I take pictures of everything that moves as a hobby and he knows that. I put new pictures on my web page daily so I am always asking people to let me know about interesting catches," Henderson said in an email to Nat Geo News Watch.

Photo of fisher Willy Dean (left) and the shark he caught in the Potomac courtesy of Christy Henderson, Buzz's Marina. 

Second eight-foot shark found in Potomac on same day

The same day another shark was found in another pound net a few miles up the Potomac River in Tall Timbers, Henderson added. "It was 8' 3", according to Thomas Crowder, the fisherman who owned that net."

"This summer we also had a humpback whale visit us in the bay, so really you never know what you will find here."

Sharks aren't the only big visitors to that part of the Chesapeake. "This summer we also had a humpback whale visit us in the bay, so really you never know what you will find here," Henderson said.

The shark caught by Dean was identified by Ken Kaumeyer, curator of estuarine biology at the Calvert Marine Museum, who was with Dean when he found the shark in his net, so he has confirmed that it is indeed a bull shark, Henderson said. "They were collecting rays for the Marine Museum exhibit when it was found."

Related National Geographic News story:

Great Whites May Be Taking the Rap for Bull Shark Attacks

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Conservationists are celebrating the arrival of the first rhino calf to be born in Bardia National Park, Nepal, since poaching was halted almost two years ago, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said today.

The greater one-horned rhino calf was spotted with its mother by conservationists on a recent elephant-back patrol, ZSL said in a news release accompanying this photo.

Photo of the new greater one-horned rhino calf in Nepal courtesy of Zoological Society of London.

ZSL is an international scientific, conservation and educational charity. It runs two zoos, including London Zoo, carries out scientific research at the Institute of Zoology, and is involved in field conservation internationally.

Supported by experts from ZSL and a grant from the Darwin Initiative, systematic anti-poaching and monitoring patrols are carried out by Nepal's Department for National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) and the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) to protect the country's vulnerable rhinos, ZSL said.

Intensive poaching

"Nepal's rhino population has been subjected to intensive poaching over the past decade as the country was gripped by civil war. Now less than 450 rhino remain in three populations in Bardia and Chitwan National Parks, and Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve.

"The birth of calves is a strong indicator that the patrols are bringing much-needed stability to the country's rhino population."

Rajan Amin, senior field conservation biologist at ZSL, said: "With so few rhino left in Nepal, every new calf is crucial to securing the long-term survival of the species. The rhino also act as an umbrella species for the grassland ecosystem; by conserving them, we're protecting the whole ecosystem which services other species--including ourselves."

Elephant-back patrols

Elephant-back patrol teams have also seen success in Chitwan National Park, where a female calf was recently rescued after being separated from its mother during the monsoon, ZSL added.

"The female calf was found marooned on a dead tree in the middle of the Narayani River with a broken leg. Staff from DNPWC transported the two-foot-high calf back to the Park headquarters in Kasara where she is being treated by a combined veterinary team from the Park and NTNC."

"The future of the greater one-horned rhino is of critical importance to the Government of Nepal. As a flagship species it is serving as a rallying point for conservation, capturing the attention of our people and helping to generate much needed funds," said Gopal Updhayay, the director general of DNPWC.

In addition to poaching, Nepal's rhino population is facing pressure from habitat degradation, invasive alien plant species and human-wildlife conflict, ZSL said.

"There is no quick solution for the greater one-horned rhino, but we're committed to their long-term protection."

"There is no quick solution for the greater one-horned rhino, but we're committed to their long-term protection," said Naresh Subedi of NTNC. "The elephant-back patrols, combined with improved habitat management, raising awareness of the threats facing them through community art projects, and providing local people with alternative livelihoods are all helping to ease the pressure on these iconic animals."

ZSL collaborates with the following partners on its greater one-horned rhino, grassland, and community engagement project: Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, Nepal Army, National Trust for Nature Conservation Nepal, WWF Nepal, CABI, Elephant Care International and Tufts University on Health, South African National Parks, IUCN African and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups, Theatre for Africa, Earthbeat Nepal, AWELY and Defra.

Sometimes called the Indian rhinoceros, the species, Rhinoceros unicornis, is listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as Vulnerable. According to the IUCN assessment of Rhinoceros unicornis (2008), populations are increasing overall due to strict protection, especially in India.

Continuing decline in habitat a threat

"However, some populations are decreasing, especially in Nepal and parts of northeastern India," IUCN's assessment states. "The species is currently confined to fewer than ten sites. There is a continuing decline in the quality of habitat, projected to continue into the future, which, if not addressed, will affect the long-term survival of some of the smaller populations, and could jeopardize the further recovery of the species.

"Its populations are also severely fragmented, and with over 70 percent of the population in Kaziranga National Park [in India], a catastrophic event there could have a devastating impact on the status of the species."

Posted by David Braun from media materials submitted by ZSL and from information on the IUCN page for Rhinoceros unicornis and the National Geographic profile page for Indian rhinoceros.

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Tonight marks the beginning of college football for the 2010 season. I used to look foward to it , but I don't as muivh anymore.  Throughout the past year, schools including Miami, North Carolina, UCONN, and USC ak.a. University of stealing champuonships have been invesitaged. Recently one of the top players at NorthCArolina was suspened for the y ear.  USC was found in June to have violated many NCAA sanctions including improper benefits for former footnall player Regggie Bush and basketball player O.J. Mayo.

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