India is the fourth country to ban keeping cetaceans in captivity, behind Costa Rica, Hungary and Chile. Dolphins and other cetaceans have long been kept as a source of entertainment and guaranteed income in zoos and theme parks alike. But knowing what we know now about cetacean intelligence, is that really the right thing to do?
Tag Archives: science news
there’s an app for that
I am sure you have heard me preach about the evils of palm oil, again and again, but if you’ve actually tried to shop for products without palm oil you’ve probably found that you’re going without a lot of your normal snacks. It sucks! Goodness, I’ve missed popcorn, but now theres a way to find who is using sustainable palm oil!

island dwarfism
If any of you read National Geographic News or follow them on Facebook you might have recently seen something about the California Dwarf Fox coming back from the brink of extinction. The drastic increase in numbers over the last nine years has been staggering. While this is all well and good what really caught my attention was the idea of island dwarfism, something I have been fascinated with since I was a little girl.

virgin birth
Yippee! I had time, and actually remembered, to make a hump day post this week! Even though I am still on vacation in France with my family I am finally getting enough internet to blog. Lets discuss virgin birth, or, parthenogenesis. Most people have heard of the legend of the Virgin Mary, and if you’re not familiar with Christianity at all, most religions have virgin birth myths. Well, it doesn’t tend to occur very often(if at all) in mammals, but is quite common among other types of animals!

aceh rainforest
About a month ago I wrote a post called ‘it’s only 4 million acres‘ about an Indonesian govenor’s plan to open up 4 million acres of conserved rainforest to mining and plantation use on the island of Sumatra. That is the area of one million football fields.

top ten new species of 2012
Recently the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University chose 10 species that it named the top 10. The species are chosen based on being unique, unusual or even ones that live in treacherous terrain. These new species are not just animals, but include plants and fungus as well!

unlikely mothers
lion burgers ban
So Illinois is finally taking the big leap and making the decision that maybe, just maybe, lion meat shouldn’t be sold for consumption. That’s right, Illinois officials have decided its high time to stop selling their citizens lion burgers, for the good of the lions of course.

to revive or not to revive
HELP! de-extinction quotes needed
I’m calling out to all of my followers to beg you guys for some quotes and your opinions on DE-EXTINCTION.
There are people thinking about bringing back things like mammoths, shasta ground sloths and even the passenger pigeon.
Any thoughts or responses are welcome! If you don’t want to post anything here my email is: sabell@smu.edu
PLEASE don’t spam my email.



