TIANANMEN SQUARE - The Giant Mincing Machine?

**REPOST TO TEST GOOGLE MAPS API-KEY PROBLEM**

On their visit to China to see the Baiji Dolphin, Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine visited Tiananmen Square in Beijing. They joined the queue to enter the mausoleum and filed past the body of Chairman Mao...

We joined the line after some hesitation, half-expecting that we might be there all day, but we were kept constantly on the move by the barking marshals, and even found that we were accelerating as we got closer to the front. Less than three hours after we had tagged on to the end of the line we were hurried into the red-pile-carpeted inner sanctum and ran past the tiny, plump, waxy body as respectfully as we could.

The queue which had been so tightly and rigorously controlled as it was lined up to be fed into the mausoleum, disintegrated amongst the souvenir stalls as it emerged from the other side. I imagined that from the air the building must resemble a giant mincing machine.

This map from Google Maps shows that Douglas was absolutely right...

Click here for a larger view

Code of the Kakapo in HD

ELWIN productions have a press release progress report on the film "Code of the Kakapo" currently in its third year of filming.

In a world first, Otago film company ELWIN Productions is using new High Definition technology to document a remarkable story following the struggle to bring the world’s rarest wild parrot back from the brink of extinction.
[...]
Filmmaker Scott Mouat says that the 90 minute feature-length film will be the first of its kind in both content and technology used.

“Although male Kakapo have been filmed before, no one has seen or filmed the act of mating. In a first, I have been given access to one of the males during the mating process. And, I’ve been loaned the only camera in the world that can capture this in high definition.”

The trailer (which we've featured before) can be seen here...

Distribution rights for the film are with Astronought so it looks like it will be easy to purchase.

Komodo Dragon Hunt Abandoned as a Hoax

Australian news.com.au reports that the Komodo Dragon hunt in Papua New Guineahas been called off.

Reports of sightings continued over the weekend and the Army and Department of Environment and Conservation were called to retrieve the giant lizard.
[...]
But Morobe Province Disaster and Emergency officer Roy Kamen told PNG's Post Courier the search was called off because they had no new leads and the search was costing too much.

"It may be a hoax ... highly skilled soldiers have been in the bushes for four days but have not sighted the reptile," he said.

Immersive Video clips

Just thought I'd share these AMAZING "immersive" videos. Much like the spherical views you see on real-estate sites, but these are actual videos that you can swing around and view from any angle. These aren't exactly Another Chance To See related, but they were just too cool not to share. More information and videos at www.immersivemedia.com.

Humpback Whales


Coral Reef


42nd Street

Fugitive Komodo Dragon on the Loose?

The New Zealand Herald reports that a rogue Komodo Dragon has been terrorizing locals of Papua New Guinea's second largest city Lae. The dragon (or maybe two) had possibly escaped from an expatriate who was keeping it illegally at his home.

Morobe Province office has organised a hunt and believe several sighting by locals could mean two lizards are on the loose.

Dr Gae Gowae from PNG's Department of Environment and said it was an unusual case because the endangered species was found on Komodo Island in Indonesia.

More Komodo Dragon Parthenogenesis?

Sedgwick County Zoo in Kansas is celebrating the first hatchling from a clutch of seventeen Komodo Dragon eggs laid by female Gaia back in mid-May 2007. ABC affiliate KAKE.com has the story.

The only other Komodo Dragon in the zoo enclosure is ALSO female, so it looks very much like we have another case of parthenogenesis on our hands, as we did last year at Chester Zoo.

The hatchling entered the world on January 31, measuring almost 17-inches-long from nose to tail and weighing 104 grams.
[...]
Sedgwick County Zoo followed the Species Survival Plan (SSP) recommendation to incubate and hatch two eggs. The SSP wanted to further document that Komodo dragons are capable of parthenogenesis. The second egg at Sedgwick County Zoo is in the final stages of hatching.

So, Do Kakapos SWIM Like Bricks?

Apparently NOT, as we will see...

Douglas Adams famously wrote in Last Chance To See...

It is an extremely fat bird. A good-sized adult will weigh about six or seven pounds, and its wings are just about good for waggling a bit if it thinks it's about to trip over something - but flying is completely out of the question. Sadly, however, it seems that not only has the kakapo forgotten how to fly, but it has also forgotten that it has forgotten how to fly. Apparently a seriously worried kakapo will sometimes run up a tree and jump out of it, whereupon it flies like a brick and lands in a graceless heap on the ground.

But in this article at Stuff.co.nz, reporter Cherie Howie discovers that Kakapos don't struggle quite so much in the water. Cherie recounts the experiences of DOC ranger Leigh Joyce who thought she was about to lose Sirocco in a drowning incident...

Leigh, who lives on the island with husband Richard Walle and their two young children, says she was on the jetty when she saw Sirocco running towards her.

Then, to her horror, he jumped on to the railing, looked over the edge and leapt into the water.

"I couldn't believe it. I thought I was going to have to jump off and rescue him, do CPR on a kakapo but he swam butterfly, using his wings, to the shore, shook himself off and was fine.

"Kakapo can't fly but they can swim", she adds with a laugh.

RELATED: Mosher visited Sirocco during the Kakapo Encounter event back in 2006.