Who Could Use a Little Good News Today?

Question

I remember reading about these guys as a child. So many major species have gone extinct in my lifetime. What did Mark Twain say? "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated"?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080417/sc_afp/malaysiaanimalelephants_080417102832

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080417/ap_on_sc/malaysia_pygmy_elephants_6

Hate to burst anyone's bubble (actually, I enjoy it)

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13723-no-truth-to-claims-that-13yearold-found-nasa-error.html?feedId=online-news_rss20

And a "dragon" lives on!

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//080416/480/11033dbd36834c89854da850d3be552d/

Answer 1

thats so sad that so many animal species have gone extinct

Answer 2

many many animals went extinct long before man came along

Answer 3

Don't fret it's not without hope. It is discouraging to read of a hotel going up on turtle breeding grounds. Only 17% of the world is without human influence. By the same token you would also be amazed at the number of newly discovered species. Some have made come backs, from being thought extinct. Don't quote me on this, but I think on the average, fifty new species are discovered every year...not counting bacteria of course.

http://www.mongabay.com/news-index/speci...

http://www.plentymag.com/blogs/extinctio...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20...

http://www.livescience.com/animals/08020...

Edit: I'm not one to completly dismiss a concept, but the artical was a bit generalized. Migratory species do not always conform to expected behavior. Who's to say what species of plant is going to be primary or isolated, and whether it will be described as beneficial or not. So...yes, no,and maybe.

Answer 4

They keep finding new species in New Guinea at the moment. Makes you think though, do they always get the extinct status right.

I'm not sure how you burst any ones bubble. Someone points out NASA are wrong, NASA admit it.

Edit -

People are constantly find errors with NASA's work, including GISS model which was altered a few months ago to correct a high increase. The news that NASA could have made another mistake isn't suprising. The fact that New Scientist come to NASA's rescue by denying everything isn't suprising either. New scientist seems to be a political toy nowerdays more than an independent science journal.

There is a chance that the NASA calculations are not the whole picture. The Pioneer effect describes deviations of the trajectory of the Pioneer spacecrafts from the calculated trajectories. These deviations were also observed for several other spacecrafts. There is no reason why they should not also be there for asteroids. Such small deviations could then lead to an impact instead of a fly-by because the calculations would then be intrinsically wrong.

Answer 5

Apparently they were saved by a warmer environment!  Go global warming go!!

Answer 6

welcome to the new era! (well ok epoch)

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environ...

love those elephants :-)