At the launch of the Singapore Red Data Book
on the wild shores of singapore blog
Life History of the Dot-Dash Sergeant
on the Butterflies of Singapore blog
Why only juvenile Tiger Shrikes arrive in Singapore?
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Bottlebrush trees in Malaysia’s hill stations
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Intricate and fanciful snails
on the wonderful creation blog
Letter by Freddie Choo, Straits Times 30 Nov 08;
I visited St John's Island last Tuesday and while disembarking at the pier, noticed that the water on one side looked polluted. There was also a strong raw sewage odour permeating the entire waterfront.
On closer inspection, I noticed a pipe discharging sewage into the water. From the odour, it must be untreated sewage.
What is alarming is its close proximity to a deep-sea fish farm there, where fish are reared for sale and consumption in our markets.
From the flow of the water, there is no way anyone can argue that the sewage does not affect the farm, as there is only one channel.
I hope the authorities will look into this.
I also noticed some visitors to the island picking shellfish off the rocks.
I hope their health will not be adversely affected by the sewage, as the shellfish can be carriers of toxic agents.
Mine gold in your backyard
As belts tighten, it feels good to go local, eat local this festive season
By Chua Mui Hoong, Straits Times 30 Nov 08;
I used to think only faraway places offered nature lovers interesting flora and fauna. I was in love with America's national parks. Until I came home and discovered Singapore's own nature reserves and nature areas.
I have almost forgotten what the inside of an aeroplane looks like these days.
Okay, I exaggerate a little.
But it has been nearly a year since I got onto an airplane to fly anywhere. The last flight I took was during a family vacation to Australia last December. Since then, I've been grounded.
This is a strange experience for me. I used to be one of those afflicted with wanderlust, who got itchy feet if she had to stay put in staid Singapore for three months at a stretch.
London and Boston topped my list of favourite cities to holiday in. For a few years, my annual vacation was taken up totally by a long sojourn in the United States: visiting friends from university in Boston, travelling around the New England states or stopping over in sunny California.
And then, this year, my circumstances and priorities changed. And now I find myself grounded for a year.
My family did discuss whether to take a break somewhere.
'How about Turkey,' I asked.
'Turkey?' queried the two teens, my niece and nephew, noses wrinkling in distaste.
'Or Europe?' ventured my sister.
'I want to go to Germany,' proclaimed my niece, 12.
'Anything,' said my nephew, 17.
'Europe is so far and expensive and cold. How about Australia?' I suggested.
'Gold Coast or Melbourne?' asked my sister.
'We just went to the Gold Coast last year,' protested the teens.
'How about Perth or Western Australia? Except I've been to Perth and I feel I know the Pinnacles by heart,' I said.
'Stay at home,' said my nephew.
'Taiwan?' I said.
'Been there,' said my niece and sister.
'Vietnam?' I suggested.
'Maybe,' said my sister. 'Or how about Cameron Highlands?'
'Or Pangkor?' I asked.
A typical Chua Family Council. No consensus was reached. With a financial downturn looming, and teenagers who appeared happy hanging around doing nothing during the school holidays except sleep, eat, tease each other and irritate their parents and aunts, no decision was taken.
Looks like we may spend December in Singapore.
Scanning the immigration stamps in my passport, I realise I have been content with short breaks to neighbouring Indonesia and Malaysia by road or ferry.
A weekend in Bintan here, several trips to Sebana Cove there, and leisurely road trips across the Causeway to whichever hotel takes our fancy - these short jaunts have been enough to satisfy this oncerestless soul.
I still feel the urge to venture to distant shores, but I'm learning also to appreciate what lies in my own backyard.
Or as the Chinese phrase goes, jiu di qu cai - from this very ground you can pluck whatever fortune or needs you require.
And with belts tightening in the face of a possibly protracted downturn, that's a pretty good perspective to take when planning your family vacation, or what to do or where to eat or what to buy.
Here's my one-line tip to staying happy as budgets shrink and belts tighten: Look for gold in your own backyard.
This applies as much to travel and recreation as to food.
I used to think only faraway places offered nature lovers interesting flora and fauna. I was in love with America's national parks.
Until I came home and discovered Singapore's own nature reserves and nature areas.
I've spent many happy hours along MacRitchie's lovely trails, the Petai being my favourite. Had heart-stopping moments spying on birds catching prey in Upper Peirce, seen flamingos in Sungei Buloh.
Now I can even watch birds from my own flat. Straw-headed bulbuls perch on the tree in front of my living room, call to their mates and display their plumage. Flights of white egrets and the occasional migratory crane flits by. A resident Brahminy Kite scans the sky for prey in the mid-morning. White-throated kingfishers wait by the canal for lizards.
The other day, I walked part of the new Southern Ridges at dusk, awed by overgrown banyan and fledgling bamboos on the way out, and admired bats flitting about on the way back.
I am learning that one does not need to travel far to have magical moments.
A recent interlude in Malacca opened my eyes to the wonders of this Unesco World Heritage city.
Sitting on the steps of the ruins of the nearly 500-year-old St Paul's Church perched on a hilltop, looking down at the twinkling lights of Malacca and the river, and giving thanks for my past 40 years, I felt a sense of pilgrimage and a sense of returning home. After years admiring cathedrals in distant lands, I am learning that beauty and wonder lie also on one's doorstep.
Digging for gold in your own backyard extends to food, where it makes sense to eat local.
It used to be that when I was in Singapore, I would look for expensive Western food for its sheer novelty.
In Boston, I would seek out Asian supermarkets for char siew or green leafy Chinese vegetables. When I hosted parties for fellow students, Penang-style char kway
teow at US$50 per platter was de rigueur for its sheer exotic appeal.
These days, I'm learning to make do with whatever local produce is available.
Why look for risotto or paella when fried rice and nasi goreng are in abundance? Or duck confit when the neighbourhood kopi tiam sells you a nice roast duck drumstick for $4?
This December will probably see me stay put in Singapore or nearby environs.
Come to think of it, I've not been to Chek Jawa after the boardwalk was erected. I still want to check out Labrador's rocky shore at low tide. There's the rest of the Southern Ridges to explore.
And the entire Makansutra guide's worth of hawker stalls to try - and a few more gems I could add to that guide.
And if the appeal of Singapore gets stale after a while, there's the whole Malaysian peninsula worth of riches to delve into.
muihoong@sph.com.sg
What are your favourite local places of interest? E-mail suntimes@sph.com.sg
Satish Cheney, Channel NewsAsia 30 Nov 08;
SINGAPORE : It may be due to the bad economy or a love of nature, but more Singaporeans are warming up to the idea of having a holiday without leaving the country.
D'Kranji Farm Resort, situated at Lim Chu Kang - usually known for its cemeteries and army camps - is drawing Singaporeans who want an "Old MacDonald's" kind of a holiday.
It costs about S$250 a night to stay in one of the farm villas, and the location seems to be a welcome reprieve for some.
"Out on the drive here, it feels like a road trip... You look around, and there're no skyscrapers. You feel like you're out of the city which is good," said resort guest Chiong Siau.
Besides the farming landscape, guests at D'Kranji Farm Resort get to choose your own seafood, or something more adventurous for dinner.
There are spa treatments for guests as well, and this is helping to bring occupancy rates up - with 70 per cent expected for November.
"It's very relaxing harem" said one resort guest.
"In fact, we've booked here for December holiday already," said another.
For some resort guests, the allure is more than just nature.
"(Some of the guests) used to stay here previously, but because of the development, they moved to housing estates. So, they miss this place. (Coming here) brings back old memories," said Harry Quek, manager at D'Kranji Farm Resort.
The majority of people going to farm resorts to escape their stressful lives are Singaporeans, but the resort management is hoping to bring in people from other countries as well. It has been working with tour agencies from far-away countries such as Russia.
Nature also seems to be a selling point for corporate functions, as well as church camps and schools.
"(With) the church camps and educational programmes, we let people know how things are built... (and) what you're eating, to show the children (where the food) came from," said Don Ho, manager of Business Development at XCL Concepts.
With the resort's expansion in the pipeline, there could be more reason for Singaporeans to holiday at home. - CNA /ls
With doggy movies hitting the big screens, film companies and SPCA team up to counter impulse buying
Jeanmarie Tan, New Paper 30 Nov 08;
AN adorable, pampered chihuahua named Chloe is currently making audiences fall in love with pint-sized pooches in the live-action movie Beverly Hills Chihuahua.
Then there's the upcoming animated film Bolt, about the brave and loyal American white shepherd puppy who's the star of an action TV series and believes his superpowers are real.
And in January, Marley & Me - starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston - revolves around a family who learns important life lessons from their naughty and neurotic labrador retriever.
After watching the dogs' irresistibly cute and wonderful antics on screen, who wouldn't want one of their own?
After all, aquariums here saw an 80 per cent increase in sales of clownfish after Finding Nemo was released.
But the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) is concerned that the current slew of family-friendly flicks about man's best friend may spark a craze for these starring breeds.
For the first time, the SPCA has collaborated with Singapore's cinema exhibitors to screen appeals that remind the public against impulse buying, which usually results in pets becoming unwanted after the novelty wears off.
The advisory message is currently on Golden Village's website and the plasma TV screens at all Golden Village locations.
It is also being flashed on Shaw Lido atrium's video wall and the TV sets in Eng Wah's cinema lobbies islandwide, as well as being displayed as a still frame prior to the 35mm advertisements that play before each screening at Cathay cinemas.
Rise in abandonment
Ms Deirdre Moss, executive officer of the SPCA, said the shelter is seeing a rise in abandoned pedigree dogs.
Last year, the organisation received over 1,500 such dogs. And as of October this year, it has already taken in about 1,300.
Lost dogs are sometimes reclaimed, while unclaimed ones are either put up for adoption or put to sleep. Ms Moss feels the message acts as a 'preventive measure' - especially since the school holidays have started and Christmas is round the corner.
She told The New Paper: 'We have not observed any trend previously... that is, no excess abandonment of a particular breed coinciding with the release of similar animal-themed movies.
'But the SPCA feels it is justified now because pedigree dog ownership has been on the increase in recent years.'
Incidentally, a similar message - from producers Walt Disney Company and the American Humane Association - appears towards the end of Beverly Hills Chihuahua and before the credits.
But Ms Maan Villareal, marketing director of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Singapore, said the notice is on all original versions of the film and not in specific reaction to the SPCA's request.
Since opening at No 1 in the US two months ago, Beverly Hills Chihuahua has grossed US$91.6 million ($138m) and is considered a moderate hit.
However, it didn't do as well in Singapore, raking in $487,600 since it opened last Thursday to land in third place behind Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and Body Of Lies.
Ms Villareal said she hasn't heard any reports about the movie directly boosting chihuahua sales in the US.
She expects Disney's other movie, Bolt, to perform 'very well' locally - even though it disappointingly opened in third place last weekend in the US with US$27m - but feels it's unlikely audiences will rush out to buy American white shepherds because of it.
Bolt opens in cinemas here on 4 Dec, but special advance 3D screenings started this week.
A spokesman of Twentieth Century Fox, which will be releasing Marley & Me on 8 Jan, added: 'We feel that the message of the film isn't at all about encouraging dog ownership...
'(Instead), we see how unpredictable dogs like labradors can be and that it takes a lot of responsibility and commitment to let one into your life.'
Not influenced
Well, Hollywood may be going to the dogs, but Singapore moviegoers The New Paper spoke to don't seem to be biting.
Student Ong Jia Jun, 18, said: 'Although I found the dogs in the show both entertaining and adorable, I don't think it has changed my liking for them, neither has it given me more reason to get an animal, chihuahua or not.'
Housewife Chew Wen Ling, 44, enjoyed watching Beverly Hills Chihuahua with her kids, but it stops there.
She said: 'I'm pretty strict... as I want them to be aware of the responsibility of looking after the animals.'
Madam Chew's daughter, 16-year-old student Chloe Ng, added: 'In a way, (the movie) kind of inspired me to want a chihuahua and it'll be nice to have one, but I don't think we'll get one just because of the movie.'
Pet shops here have also not seen any significant spike in the demand for chihuahuas.
Ms Shirley Poh, sales manager of Pets' Station, said sales have been 'quite consistent' and there's been 'no specific jumps in purchase' for the past five months.
Mr Eric Ee, director of Pick A Pet which operates from several Pet Lovers Centre outlets, said: 'I think consumers now know what they really want, and are responsible enough... Toy poodles are in now, not chihuahuas.'
But Mr Eric Lim, director of Ericsson Pet Farm, reported receiving more enquiries about chihuahuas of late and even 'a few purchases'.
He said: 'Certainly, the movie helps publicise the breed a bit better, and we do get people calling in.'
But even though Singaporeans don't seem to be terribly swayed, the SPCA isn't taking any chances.
According to Ms Moss, chihuahuas are not among the common small breeds that are abandoned (which include Jack Russell terriers, malteses and shitzus).
But she's hoping to avoid having them join the list next year.
SPCA is also considering getting the message screened for Marley & Me and Bolt - especially as the latter features a hamster that's even cuter than the dog.
Ms Moss said the SPCA received about 1,200 domestic small animals for the year ending this June. Recently, on two separate occasions, cages containing hamsters were dumped outside its premises.
Cinema exhibitors say they will continue to support what they feel is an important and worthy initiative.
A Cathay spokesman said it had heard about a phenomenon in the US where many people had purchased chihuahuas after catching the movie, only to subsequently abandon them at pet shelters.
She added: 'We felt we were in a good position to help raise some form of awareness in our country to hopefully prevent a similar situation.'
Shaw's executive vice-president Mark Shaw added: 'This is one meaningful public service which is within our ability to help the cause.'
- Additional reporting by Eoin Ee, newsroom intern
Yahoo News 29 Nov 08;
SYDNEY (AFP) – About 80 pilot whales have been stranded on rocks on Tasmania's remote west coast just a week after 53 of the giant mammals beached themselves on the island and died, an official said Saturday.
The whales were discovered around mid-morning and a helicopter flew over the area but it would take a team of about 10 rescuers until Sunday to reach the pod, said state government spokesman Warwick Brennan.
"It appears at this stage the majority of the whales are dead," Brennan said.
"Possibly 11 whales are still alive but they've all been battered about on the rocks."
The difficult terrain meant there was grave concern about the ability of rescuers to save the surviving whales, he said.
Pilot whales can reach up to 20ft and weigh up to three tonnes.
Exactly a week earlier, 64 of the mammals, many of them mothers and calves, were found stranded on Anthony's Beach on the southern Australian island.
Rescuers managed to save 11, hauling them onto specially-modified vehicles and driving them to a nearby beach for release into the sea.
Tasmania's Parks and Wildlife Service said Monday satellite tracking devices fitted to five of the rescued whales indicated that the animals were swimming freely in deep water in Bass Strait.
Whale strandings are not uncommon in Tasmania but why they occur remains the subject of scientific debate.
Katrina Witham, Brisbane Times 30 Nov 08;
MARINE conservationists say the interception of a Papua New Guinea fishing boat laden with four tonnes of "de-finned" sharks in Australian waters shows illegal shark fishing has become a worldwide enterprise and the Great Barrier Reef could be its next target.
On Thursday, Australian Customs authorities escorted an illegal fishing boat to Cairns after it was spotted 6.6 nautical miles east of Ashmore Reef an Australian Nature Reserve west of Darwin.
The boat was first detected by a Customs Coastwatch aircraft last Sunday and was intercepted.
A search a revealed about four tonnes of sharks, with their fins cut off.
Twenty shark jaws, 20 tuna and 20 assorted large fish were also allegedly discovered on board. Customs could not confirm whether the vessel's 15 crew members had been charged.
Marine conservationist, researcher and Fox Shark Research Foundation director Andrew Fox said a shark finning industry in Papua New Guinea had previously been unheard of and the fact the vessel was from the region showed the industry had become truly international.
He said illegal finning had become more lucrative as the shark population became more scarce and was now attractive to developing fishing nations.
"We are very concerned about the Great Barrier Reef," Mr Fox said.
"There have been moves in our own Great Barrier Reef to set up a shark finning industry because it is such big money.
"While these moves have so far been blocked, it is very scary to think the question was even posed."
He said sharks were vital to maintaining the health and balance of marine eco systems and without them the impact would be devastating.
"Even considering a shark finning industry in Queensland is so short term compared to the long-term beauty of the reef and tourism industry that it feeds."
Shark fins are farmed for sale to restaurants to make soup, considered a delicacy in Asia.
The World Wildlife Fund has calculated that 100 million sharks a year are killed to feed the industry and says this is not sustainable.
Customs Border Protection deputy commander Demetrio Veteri said illegal foreign fishing posed a number of risks to the sustainability of Australian fish stocks.
Phuong Le, Associated Press Yahoo News 29 Nov 08;
SUMAS, Wash. – Years of collecting dead carcasses and examining lead-poisoned livers have convinced Mike Smith of this: to save Pacific Coast trumpeter swans, he has to haze them.
As the sun set behind Judson Lake — the likely source of the lead poisoning — the wildlife biologist kept vigil in a cramped watchtower with a night-vision scope, a noisemaker and a laser.
His mission is to scare the swans off the lake, away from the shotgun pellets that litter the lake bottom and have killed hundreds of the birds.
It wasn't long before Smith heard a distinctive swan honk and then spotted a snow-white bird gracefully land on the water. Smith fired his noisemaker, sending a red flare whistling into the sky. The swan didn't budge. He fired again. This time the bird flew away.
"It is bird harassment for a few moments of their life, but it certainly seems to extend their life," Smith said.
When trumpeter swans started dying by the hundreds in recent years, scientists traced the problem to this shallow 100-acre lake that straddles the U.S.-Canadian border.
Lead shots have been banned for waterfowl hunting since 1991. But wildlife scientists believe the swans were swallowing leftover pellets from the muddy bottoms of lakes and wetlands.
The lead enters the birds' bloodstream and paralyzes their internal organs, Smith said. They die within weeks.
"All indications are that this is a major source," Smith said of Judson Lake. "We know there's lead here. Since we've kept them off, the mortality has gone way down."
Since the hazing began two winters ago, fewer swans have died in southern British Columbia and northern Puget Sound, which includes Seattle.
About 100 swans died of lead poisoning in each of those years, a 50 percent drop from the five-year average before hazing. About 1,600 swans have died of lead poisoning in the region since 1999.
"They're huge, big and white," said Martha Jordan, with the Trumpeter Swan Society. "When they're dead, you notice them."
The swans, North America's largest waterfowl, usually arrive in northwestern Washington and southwestern British Columbia in early November. One-sixth of the world's population spends the winter in the Pacific Northwest before migrating to central Alaska in April.
Native trumpeter swans have made a comeback in recent decades. About 8,000 swans were counted in the area, compared with about 100 in the early 1970s, according to the state department of fish and wildlife.
It takes only one or two pieces of shot to kill a swan, Smith said. Most of the birds that scientists tested had ingested an average of 20 whole pellets, he said.
"When you see one up close ... and get some idea of just how big and beautiful they are and then to go and see them succumb to as horrible a death as lead poisoning, it's quite heart-wrenching," Smith said.
In 2001, scientists with the University of Washington, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Canadian Wildlife Service and Trumpeter Swan Society trapped and radio-collared about 300 swans to trace the source of lead.
They collected dead carcasses, took blood samples and tracked the birds' patterns. They also took hundreds of core samples from their forage and roost sites and found high lead density in areas that swans frequently used, including Judson.
"We feel really good about Judson Lake and what we've been doing there," said Jennifer Bohannon, a biologist with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
But "we need to come up with a long-term solution," she said. "I don't think hazing year to year is the answer. That's the challenge that lies ahead."
Local, federal, Canadian fish and wildlife officials and others are now trying to come up with a cleanup plan.
While swan hazing has led to an overall drop in deaths in the area, scientists discovered unexpected deaths last year in two counties, Skagit and Snohomish, north of Seattle.
It's unclear whether the swans pick up lead in the north and fly south to die, or have found new sources of lead. Scientists are starting to monitor other lakes.
"We went to nontoxic shot in 1991 and how many years later we're still losing these animals to lead shot," Jordan said. "You've got to know there are more lead from other sources."
She noted that lead shot is still legal for hunting upland birds such as pheasant or quail, and for skeet or trap shooting.
Smith and two other university colleagues will haze Judson Lake until January, when the water level is too deep for the swans to reach the lake bottom.
Smith usually hears the bugle-like honks before he sees them from his makeshift 6-by-6 foot tower. The swans try to roost on the lake at night, after foraging on corn stubble and winter wheat crops in nearby farms.
If the noisemaker doesn't work, Smith shines a red laser at the birds to scare them away. As a last resort, he gets into an airboat to physically chase them away. Starting up the roaring engine is usually enough to do the trick.
Within several hours, Smith recorded a total of 34 swans hazed from the lake.
"You learn patience," he said. "It's like fishing for birds."
Iqbal Pittalwala
University of California, Riverside Strategic Communications Office
LiveScience.com Yahoo News 29 Nov 08;
This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.
Spiders have fascinated Cheryl Hayashi since her undergraduate days at Yale, where one day a professor offered her an opportunity that changed her life. Hayashi had to hand-feed the professor's laboratory colony of tropical spiders - an assignment that sparked such an interest in arthropods that it led to a career in biology.
Today, Hayashi, a professor of biology at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) and a recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, returns the Yale professor's favor by mentoring students and postdoctoral researchers in her own lab, where they do extensive genetic characterization and mechanical testing of spider silk fibers.
Comprised of individual protein molecules, spider silk has long fascinated scientists. With the support of NSF and other institutions, Hayashi's research team collects spider silk strands and painstakingly combs through silk glands, located inside the spiders' abdomens, to find the elusive genetic blueprints for silk making. The goal of the work is to better understand what gives the silk its amazing properties.
"Different proteins are made and mixed in the silk glands of spiders to create the silk," Hayashi says. "It is a combination of the exact sequence of the individual proteins and the way these proteins interact and link with each other that gives silk its remarkable strength. People have tried to mimic its production in the lab - for example, by squeezing these proteins through a narrow syringe - but what they've ended up with was something thick and brittle, not the fine and flexible material that is spider silk."
Nearly all spiders make several kinds of silk to move, trap and store food, and reproduce. Most silks are less than one-tenth the diameter of a human hair, lighter than cotton, yet ounce for ounce up to five times tougher than steel. As a result, they are being considered for improving a wide variety of products such as lightweight, super-strong body armor; specialty rope; biodegradable surgical sutures; and components of medical devices.
"Whenever you need something strong and lightweight, spider silk can be a good candidate," Hayashi says. "For example, making a thin film or a thin fabric. Or as scaffolds to re-grow tissue. Silk is being seriously explored for use in bullet-proof vests. Down the road, I see silk being used in textiles for high-performance, durable clothing. Spider silk's advantages are its softness and flexibility, qualities you need for making items such as high-tech athletic attire and ultra-tough patches to cover areas around body joints."
Scientists like Hayashi have come up with ingenious ways to increase the production of spider silk. With help from plant genetics engineers at UCR, she has moved silk genes into crop plants like tobacco and tomato. These host plants produce copious amounts of silk that she can extract in her lab for analysis.
"We chose plants as hosts because they are much lower maintenance and easier to cultivate in large numbers than spiders," Hayashi says. "Other silk-producing hosts could be bacteria, yeast, or farm animals."
Spider silk has been around for more than 350 million years and has changed radically over time. By combining genetic data with the fossil record, Hayashi and her team can carefully trace the intertwined histories of spiders and their silks.
When Hayashi began working on spider silk more than a decade ago, she expected a system that was intriguing because of its elegant simplicity. Indeed, the first spider silk she characterized fit neatly into her thinking - it was an uncomplicated material, understandable with just five to six core building blocks.
"But as I collected more spider silk data, it became increasingly clear that I was researching a complicated system," Hayashi says.
Over the years, her lab has shown that the remarkable properties of spider silks are created by a combination of the spider's spinning processes and the ancient protein structures handed down genetically over millions of years of evolutionary history. Her lab also uncovered the molecular structure of the genes for a variety of silks, including the protein that female spiders use to make their silken egg cases.
Her research group has been credited with discovering evidence indicating that spiders' wagon-wheel shaped nets are so old that dinosaurs may have seen them. Moreover, her lab determined the complete gene sequences for two key proteins in the "dragline silk" of the black widow spider. More recently, Hayashi expanded her studies to include silks from other arthropods (such as caterpillars) and non-fibrous silk proteins such as glues.
Her research keeps expanding to study more types of silks and more species of spiders. Her lab is also working on characterizing silk proteins that tarantulas produce in their feet.
Besides making discoveries, communicating science keeps Hayashi going. She enjoys speaking to the public about her research and emphasizes to young students, senior citizens and business groups the importance of observing nature in detail.
"It's only by closely studying how spiders make their silk that you appreciate how complicated and extraordinary the process is," she says. "You can't help but wonder how the liquid goo of proteins is dehydrated in the spider and then made to flow out as a dry, flexible fiber. Thousands and thousands of individual molecules bind together in a way that produces a continuous fiber, and, most remarkably, all this happens nearly instantaneously."
Such fascination with nature's intricate workings drew Hayashi to science and made her a national expert on the genetic structure of spider silk.
"I'm always learning something new from spiders," she admits. "Whatever I discover about them today leads to more questions tomorrow. In this young field, where so much is unknown, a new piece of information leads you unexpectedly to a completely new area of spider research. The spiders have a way of keeping my research going."
To see videos and other information about this research, go to: http://newsroom.ucr.edu/media/spidersilk.html.
Editor's Note: This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the federal agency charged with funding basic research and education across all fields of science and engineering. See the Behind the Scenes Archive.
Amran Abocar, The Independent 29 Nov 08;
The world needs "to think big" to solve the global financial crisis while helping reduce poverty, the UN secretary-general said yesterday.
Ban Ki-moon, speaking after an informal retreat with leaders attending a UN development financing conference in the Qatari capital, said it was important to avoid focusing only on financial problems and chided leaders of rich nations for not attending in greater numbers.
"We need to think big," he said at a news conference. "The financial crisis is not the only crisis we face, we also confront a development emergency and accelerating climate change.
"We need a fully global stimulus plan that meets the needs of emerging economies and developing countries. Rescue packages must be closely coordinated and we must protect the poor and most vulnerable, not only the rich and powerful."
Expectations for the conference have been dampened by the absence of Western leaders, preoccupied with the global financial turmoil.
The crisis, which has prompted vast government bailouts in Europe and the United States and raised the spectre of a deep global recession, seems to have dampened appetite for providing aid, angering developing countries and aid agencies.
"Of course, we hoped that the more high level delegations would be represented, that might have been much better," Ban said, adding that the Group of 20 rich nations and key developing states was represented by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the presidency of the European Union.
Sarkozy is the only Western leader attending the conference, and the heads of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are both absent.
Aside from the Qatari ruler, other attendees at the retreat included the Korean prime minister and leaders from Benin, Bulgaria, Costa Rica and Croatia.
The UN chief said the group did not discuss an actual sum for financing development, but said any figure would be minuscule compared to the trillions spent on bailing out financial institutions.
"If we talk only on the food crisis - it is our estimate that we may need at least $30- to $35- billion annually for the coming three years," he said. "The vast sums committed to bailing out banks and private companies dwarf ODA (overseas development aid).
"Surely we can find the much more modest amount needed to sustain more than a billion lives."
This month, the United Nations and its partners asked for a record $7 billion for humanitarian assistance projects in 2009.
The Doha meeting - which runs from November 29 to December 2 and is unrelated to the World Trade Organisation's Doha round - was set up to discuss ways to finance development through trade, aid and debt relief.
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