Hello All,
Today seems to be kind of an environmental day, as I have two articles about animals, and one about broccoli sprouts. The first animal article is about some rare frogs that had not been born in New Zeeland for many years, and finally hatched froglets. The second is about one man's effort to preserve six endangered species of turtles in Mexico. The third article, is about how broccolli sprouts may help reduce bladder cancer.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy all of the articles I found for you today. :) See you tomorrow!
Today's Top 5:
1. Cuba Signs Human Rights Pledges (BBC)
2. Google Gives Homeless Free Voicemail (Times of India)
3. Precious Froglets Arrive in Time for Leap Year (Scoop News NZ)
4. Extract of Broccoli Sprouts May Protect Against Bladder Cancer (Science Daily)
5. Vigilante Safeguards Oaxaca's Sea Turtles (NPR)
Honorable Mentions:
1. 'Hope is Back' for Kenya (CNN)
2. Woman Wins $80 Million After Buying First Lottery Ticket (Fox News)
1. Cuba Signs Human Rights Pledges
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7270179.stm
Thursday, 28 February 2008, 22:44 GMT
Cuba has signed two legally binding human rights agreements at the UN in New York, just days after Raul Castro was sworn in as the new president. The covenants - part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - commit Cuba to freedom of expression and association, and the right to travel.
Critics of the Castro government have called on it to make good on the agreements by freeing dissidents.
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, who signed the agreements, rejected suggestions of any link to the recent change in power, insisting they merely "formalised" rights enjoyed by Cuban citizens since the 1959 revolution.
Last December, Mr Roque announced his country's intention to sign up to the two agreements, saying Cuba would allow scrutiny by the recently established UN Human Rights Council in 2009.
Raul Castro took over power on Sunday
One is a covenant on civil and political rights, and the other concerns social, economic and cultural rights.
Previously, Cuba had resisted scrutiny by the UN Human Rights Commission - the predecessor of the Human Rights Council - accusing it of pro-US bias.
It is believed that at least 200 political prisoners are currently being held in Cuba.
Carlos Lauria of the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York called on Cuba to follow up its signing of the covenants and "immediately and unconditionally release the 22 independent journalists currently imprisoned for their work". "The failure to do so would render its adoption of this important treaty [the UN Bill of Human Rights] meaningless," he added.
Cuban trade unionist Pedro Alvarez and three other Cuban political prisoners were released on health grounds earlier this month, and flown to Spain. The 60-year-old said that the Cuban authorities had given him the choice to remain in prison or go into exile.
2. Google Gives Homeless Free Voicemail
February 29, 2008 11:42am
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23296129-38198,00.html
INTERNET giant Google is giving homeless people a free phone number and voicemail to help them get back on their feet.
Google has promised to provide the life-long services to San Francisco's entire homeless population to help them get a job and build self-esteem. Senior project manager at Google Craig Walker said the free services could one day be rolled out across the US, allowing every homeless person to list their own number on job applications.
“We're firm believers in the power of technology to improve the daily lives of individuals and communities as a whole, and we recognise that access to phone and voicemail services is one way (to) help San Francisco's homeless stay connected with family, friends, social workers, health care providers, and potential employers,” Mr Walker said. “While we're excited to bring this technology to our local Bay Area community, our ultimate goal is to provide these invaluable services to cities and shelters across the country.”
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said the project would change the way the homeless see society, msnbc.com reported. “How do you communicate as a homeless individual?” Mr Newsom said. “How do you expect your life to turn around if you can't even get information or if someone can't even get in touch with you?”
A man who used to be homeless told msnbc.com the project was a great way to help raise self-esteem. "Having your family, friends and loved ones being able to say ‘I'm thinking about you, I love you, I want you to know you're mine, and I miss you,' can have a monumental change in one's behaviour,” the man said.
3. Precious Froglets Arrive in Time for Leap Year
Friday, 29 February 2008, 9:49 amPress Release: Victoria University of Wellington
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0802/S00064.htm
What looks at first to be a slimy mess in a Petri dish represents a highly-significant advance in conservation and restoration ecology.
Ecologists from both the Sanctuary and Victoria are celebrating the arrival of the first Maud Island frogs (Leiopelma pakeka) to hatch on mainland New Zealand for many years. Clustered together to conserve moisture, the 13 fingernail-sized froglets in the photograph (visit website) were recently transferred from the Karori Sanctuary to Victoria University where they will be incubated and later released as young frogs.
No larger than a human adult’s little fingernail, the Maud Island froglets differ from most frog species in that they hatch from the egg as fully-formed froglets without going through the usual tadpole stage. 13 froglets in total were found during a recent audit of a specially-constructed frog research enclosure at Karori Sanctuary.
“Sixty frogs were released into the special mouse-proof enclosure in 2006 in an effort to re-establish this highly-endangered species on the mainland,” Victoria Master's student Kerri Lukis says. Ms Lukis is studying the Sanctuary population for her Master's thesis under the supervision of Associate Professor Ben Bell, Director of the University's Centre for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration.
She says that thirty of frogs released in 2006 were later released outside of the enclosure so that the captive and wild populations could be compared. When it came time to find the frogs again to see how many frogs had survived and whether they had bred she was delighted to find the 13 froglets attached to adult males.
"This is extra special because Maud Island frogs have never been found breeding in their natural habitat before, and certainly not on the mainland.
"It's wonderful timing for 2008 - international Year of the Frog – and a Leap Year. It’s rare to get a ‘good news’ story about frogs – every year around 35 species of frog become extinct and two of New Zealand’s remaining native frog species are on the critical list."
While not the rarest species, the thimble-sized Maud Island frogs are nationally threatened. Like all of New Zealand’s native frog species, they are endemic (found only here) and belong to the endemic genus Leiopelma.
They have evolved very little over the last 70 million years, resulting in some very distinctive features and behaviours. For example, they don’t croak, live in water, have webbed feet, or go through a tadpole stage.
Associate Professor Ben Bell says the University and the Sanctuary have worked closely together on this project.
“It is good to know that the Karori Sanctuary frogs are able to breed in an enclosure there. Whether those frogs released into the wild in Karori survived and bred is less certain at present.”
FROG FACTS
Frogs are regarded by scientists as environmental bio-monitors. They are particularly sensitive to changes in their environment and, as such, can be an early warning of environmental threats. However, this often means they are one of the first groups to die out when their environment changes.
Major causes of extinction/declining populations are: Loss/fragmentation of habitat; environmental pollutants; diseases (especially chytird fungus), and introduced predators.
Because New Zealand’s frogs evolved in isolation, and in an environment free of predatory mammals, they have been especially susceptible to introduced predators, the colonisation of non-native frogs, and the diseases they brought with them. Of the seven known species of endemic NZ frog, only four have survived into the 21st Century.
Maud Island frogs (Leiopelma pakeka) are one of only four surviving native frog species. All are nationally threatened, with the rarest, Hamilton’s frog (Leiopelma hamiltoni), numbering less than 300. All of New Zealand’s native frog species are endemic and belong to the genus Leiopelma. They have evolved very little over the last 70 million years, resulting in some very distinctive features and behaviours:
They don’t croak but can make ‘chirping’ sounds
They have round eye pupils (not slits)
They have no external eardrums but can sense vibrations
They don’t have webbed feet
They are nocturnal
They live on land in shady, moist forested areas or ridge tops
They don’t have a free tadpole stage – eggs are laid under rocks or logs and in most species the male sits over the eggs until they hatch as well formed, tailed froglets
They eat a variety of insects and spiders and catch their prey by grabbing it with their mouth (they don’t flick their tongues out)
They can live for more than 30 years.
4. Extract of Broccoli Sprouts May Protect Against Bladder Cancer
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080228080546.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 29, 2008)
— A concentrated extract of freeze dried broccoli sprouts cut development of bladder tumors in an animal model by more than half, according to a report in the March 1 issue of Cancer Research.
This finding reinforces human epidemiologic studies that have suggested that eating cruciferous vegetables like broccoli is associated with reduced risk for bladder cancer, according to the study's senior investigator, Yuesheng Zhang, MD, PhD, professor of oncology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. "Although this is an animal study, it provides potent evidence that eating vegetables is beneficial in bladder cancer prevention," he said.
There is strong evidence that the protective action of cruciferous vegetables derives at least in part from isothyiocyanates (ITCs), a group of phytochemicals with well-known cancer preventive activities."The bladder is particularly responsive to this group of natural chemicals," Zhang said. "In our experiments, the broccoli sprout ITCs after oral administration were selectively delivered to the bladder tissues through urinary excretion."
Other cruciferous vegetables with ITCs include mature broccoli, cabbage, kale, collard greens and others. Broccoli sprouts have approximately 30 times more ITCs than mature broccoli, and the sprout extract used by the researchers contains approximately 600 times as much.
Although animals that had the most protection against development of bladder cancer were given high doses of the extract, Zhang said humans at increased risk for this cancer likely do not need to eat huge amounts of broccoli sprouts in order to derive protective benefits.
"Epidemiologic studies have shown that dietary ITCs and cruciferous vegetable intake are inversely associated with bladder cancer risk in humans. It is possible that ITC doses much lower than those given to the rats in this study may be adequate for bladder cancer prevention," he said.
Zhang and his colleagues tested the ability of the concentrate to prevent bladder tumors in five groups of rats. The first group acted as a control, while the second group was given only the broccoli extract to test for safety. The remaining three groups were given a chemical, N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl) nitrosamine (BBN) in drinking water, which induces bladder cancer. Two of these groups were given the broccoli extract in diet, beginning two weeks before the carcinogenic chemical was delivered.
In the control group and the group given only the extract, no tumors developed, and there was no toxicity from the extract in the rats.
About 96 percent of animals given only BBN developed an average of almost two tumors each of varying sizes. By comparison, about 74 percent of animals given a low dose of the extract developed cancer, and the number of tumors per rat was 1.39. The group given the high dose of extract had even fewer tumors. About 38 percent of this high-dose group developed cancer, and the average number of tumors per animal was only .46 and, unlike the other animals, the majority were very small in size.
The study was funded by the Vital Vegetables Research Program of Australia and New Zealand, the National Cancer Institute and the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation.
5. Vigilante Safeguards Oaxaca's Sea Turtles
by Marina Giovannelli
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18481696
Day to Day, February 29, 2008 ·
Local appetite, along with international demand for turtle meat, eggs and skin, have landed Mexico's six species of marine turtles on the country's endangered species list.
But endangered sea turtles are making a comeback in Oaxaca, a state at the southern tip of Mexico's Pacific coast. Turtle-nesting on one of Oaxaca's beaches is surging, up from 55,000 turtles nesting in 1988 to more than 1 million in 2003.
Laws have helped, and so have the efforts of local veterinarian Marcelino Lopez Reyes. Reyes, 48, is a veterinarian by day and a turtle vigilante by night. He sleeps on the beach, guarding turtle nests against poachers. But there's no guarantee the eggs are safe.
One busy night during nesting season, Reyes and his two helpers left the turtle nests unguarded. When Reyes returned on his all-terrain vehicle, he was outraged. "I came back and, you know what, they had stolen six nests. People that know us, that know we're here. They saw that one ATV left, then the other ATV left, and they came and took the eggs," Reyes says. The poachers stole about 600 eggs. They will probably be sold on the street or in a cantina for about three U.S. dollars per dozen.
Poachers are constantly on the prowl, and so is Reyes. He rides a shiny-red ATV along the ocean's edge, headlights blearing into the night, looking for nests. Reyes finds an olive ridley turtle laying her eggs. She's huge, weighing about 100 pounds. Olive ridley turtles also live and breed along Africa, India and Indonesia's coasts. They return to the same beaches where they were born to lay their own eggs. This turtle's eyes are wet and teary and she grunts with effort.
Reyes counts the eggs, taking them from the nest and placing them in a plastic bag. She's laid more than 100 eggs, and Reyes hurries back to his camp where he keeps the eggs safe. Log posts and mesh wire enclose about 6,000 turtle eggs in the camp.
Reyes digs a hole about 100 feet from the water. When it's deep enough, he lowers in the plastic bag, gently empties the eggs, covers them with sand and marks the new nest.
Reyes also protects turtles from natural predators. Once he found an injured turtle during a morning patrol.
"It was a big turtle. It went up onto the beach and a dog attacked it. It got the turtle's jugular, it turned around and around, and it bleed to death," Reyes says.
Reyes extracted about 50 eggs from the turtle's belly. When they hatched, he took the turtles to the nearby government-sponsored Mexican Turtle Center. That's where he works during the day as a veterinarian.
The Mexican Turtle Center is located near the old turtle slaughterhouse known as Mazunte. The center's staff found the best protection for turtles is to create alternative employment for their human predators. Everardo Ramirez is a turtle hunter turned tourist guide.
"Yes, we used to hunt turtles. Each boat would get 60 turtles per day, from 6 a.m. to noon. We would sell them to Mazunte," Ramirez says. Now instead of hunting them, Ramirez uses them to lure tourists.
"It's better for me now," Ramirez says. "Now I protect them, don't kill them. I take tourists to see nature and to see prehistoric animals. People end up happy, and so do I because I earn some money."
Poaching turtle eggs can land a person in federal prison, leaving Mexicans like Esteban de la Cruz savoring a memory.
"You make a small hole, put lemon and chili, and it is delicious. That's one of our pre-Hispanic dishes — before the Spanish arrived, our people would eat them," he says of the technique for eating the eggs.
And he says they're not only tasty, but considered an aphrodisiac — a claim that dies hard in the world of Mexican machismo.
Honorable Mentions:
'Hope is back' for Kenya
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/02/29/us.kenya.ap/index.html?iref=24hours
Updated 3 hours 52 minutes ago (current time 3:02 pm EST)
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Representatives on Friday began working out details of a power-sharing agreement aimed at ending two months of ethnic violence that killed more than 1,000 people after a disputed presidential election.
Kenya's feuding politicians shook hands Thursday and smiled for the cameras. But the real test for President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga is whether the reluctant partners can work together to heal a divided nation.
Under the agreement, Odinga will become prime minister and have the power to "coordinate and supervise" the government -- more authority than Kibaki wanted to yield.
The bitterness between them runs deep, however, and both men have traded accusations about inciting violence, stealing the December 27 vote, and destroying the nation.
Kofi Annan, the mediator, had to prompt them to shake hands Thursday as the cameras rolled. Still, a deal was signed, and about 500 people marched in celebration Friday in the western town of Kitale. "Finally hope is back, Kenya has been reborn and it is like we are ushering in a new year!" shouted a marcher waving a picture of Odinga.
It was unclear when Odinga would take over as prime minister. Kibaki said he is reconvening parliament next Thursday to begin work on the needed constitutional changes. Representatives for the two sides were meeting Friday to work out details and start hashing out some of the longer term reforms.
"I expect us to fast-track it so that the country can get on its feet," government negotiator Mutula Kilonzo said.
Kibaki and Odinga must try to repair the lives of more than a half-million people who have been displaced from their homes and require food, water and medical care. Kenya's Red Cross says it knows of at least 500 youngsters who were separated from their families.
There is also the matter of restoring one of Africa's most promising economies. Kenya, one of the most prosperous and tourist-friendly countries in Africa, has seen up to $1 billion in losses linked to the turmoil.
But the most difficult task may be restoring Kenyans' trust in their government.
Much of the bloodshed pitted ethnic groups, such as Odinga's Luo tribe, against Kibaki's Kikuyu people, long resented for their domination of the economy and politics. Politicians have been accused of fomenting violence -- now the uneasy coalition will have to work together to disarm militia groups.
In many regions, the violence broke apart cities and towns where Kenyans had lived together -- however uneasily at times -- since independence from Britain in 1963.
The worst of the violence subsided weeks ago. Still, there were reminders as recently as Thursday of previous chaos. Police fired tear gas to disperse dozens who had gathered outside Kibaki's office to witness the signing.
Thursday's agreement came after mounting pressure from leaders in Africa and beyond, including the United States, which issued veiled threats about its future relationship with Kenya's leaders.
"The Kenyan coalition government and people can count on our support as they move forward to implement the agreement and reform agenda," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement welcoming the power-sharing deal.
European Union the humanitarian chief Louis Michel said Kibaki and Odinga "have shown the wisdom and vision to choose the path of compromise and reconciliation." Both the EU and the United States had said previously that they were reviewing their international aid to Kenya because of the crisis. "This power-sharing deal means that once again Kenya is back on a path of peace and mutual understanding," Michel said.
Woman Wins $80 Million After Buying First Lottery Ticket
Friday, February 29, 2008
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,333932,00.html
PETALUMA, Calif. —
Beginner's luck has turned a California woman into a millionaire.After playing the lottery for the first time, Elba Escamilla of Petaluma, Calif., discovered she had won the $80 million jackpot, state lottery officials said.Escamilla bought the winning ticket last week, but didn't check the numbers until she heard a television report about an unclaimed ticket from the store where she made her purchase, officials said.
The 48-year-old Escamilla has declined to be interviewed. A written statement released by the lottery says she plans on using part of the money to take her family for a vacation in Hawaii. Her $80 million jackpot is the largest ever for a Sonoma County resident.
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