|
About | Contact | Mongabay on Facebook | Mongabay on Twitter | Subscribe |
|
|
News articles on middle east
Mongabay.com news articles on middle east in blog format. Updated regularly.
home | archives | news | XML / RSS feeds
|
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 
RELATED TOPICS default related topics content BLOGROLL/LINKS default blogroll links content HIGH RESOLUTION PHOTOS / PRINTS 
CALENDARS 
CANVAS BAGS 
|
(12/21/2011) The year 2011 has presented the world with a shocking increase in irregular weather and disasters linked to climate change. Just as the 2007 "big melt" of summer arctic sea ice sent scientists and environmentalists scrambling to re-evaluate the severity of climate change, so have recent events forced major revisions and updates in climate science.
(10/11/2010) As world leaders continue to fumble a coherent, rapid, and comprehensive response to climate change, citizens from around the world yesterday sent a message to inert politicians by participating in over 7,300 events against climate change, according to 350.org, the head organizer of the day dubbed the 'Global Work Party'. "The fossil fuel industry may have thought that the collapse of the Copenhagen talks and its victory in the U.S. Congress were the final word—that people would give up in discouragement," said, Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, so-called because 350 parts per millions (ppm) is the 'safe' amount of carbon in the atmosphere according to many scientists. Currently the concentration is around 390 ppm.
(07/21/2010) Corals aggregate to form vast reefs, which are home to numerous species and provide vital ecological services such as protecting shorelines. However, coral reefs are one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world due to many factors, such as global warming and ocean acidification. Recent research by Simpson and his team of scientists has shown that corals, rather than drifting aimlessly after being released by their parent colonies and by chance landing back on reefs, instead find their way purposefully to reefs by detecting the sound of snapping shrimps and grunting fish on the reef. However, that discovery also means that the larvae might struggle to find reefs when human noises, like drilling or boats, mask the natural ocean sounds.
(02/08/2010) The salamander was a mythical creature before it was a real one: the word salamander means a legendary lizard that both survived-in and could extinguish fire. A creature that the Ancient Greeks, including Aristotle, appeared to readily believe in. No one knows how the term salamander transferred from a mythical fire-dwelling monster to the small amphibious animals it applies to today, but I have a theory. Perhaps the sight of salamanders like Luristan newt—charcoal-black and flame-orange—caused people in the seventeenth century to lend the name of myth to the taxa.
(01/12/2010) Measuring at 14 centimeters (5.5 inches), a new spider discovered in the sand dunes of Israel is the largest of its kind in all of the Middle East. How it avoided detection until now in one of the world' longest inhabited—and explored—regions is likely due, at least in part, to the species' entire habitat consisting of only three square kilometers.
(12/07/2009) Four Somalia wild ass were born at the Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation (AWWP) in Qatar. The Somali wild ass (Equus africanus somaliensis) is a subspecies of the African wild ass, both of which are classified by the IUCN Red List as Critically Endangered. The four foals all have the same father, a stallion named 'Hector' which came to AWWP in April 2008 from the Montpellier Zoo.
(05/26/2009) Over two-and-half million hectares in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; half a million hectares in Tanzania; and a quarter of a million hectares in Libya: these figures represent just some of the recent international land deals where wealthy countries buy up land in poorer nations for food, and sometimes biofuel, production. The controversial trend has sparked a recent report from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) highlighting what nations have to gain—and lose—from participating in such deals.
|
Copyright mongabay 2010 Carbon dioxide gas emissions generated from mongabay.com operations (server, data transfer, travel) are mitigated through an association with Anthrotect, an organization working with Afro-indigenous and Embera communities to protect forests in Colombia's Darien region. Anthrotect is protecting the habitat of mongabay's mascot: the scale-crested pygmy tyrant. |
