Because you need it
by digby
Now this is what I call a Honey Boo Boo:
After carrying out their third examination, vets at San Diego zoo in California confirm their new baby panda is a boy. The panda, which won’t be named until he is 100 days old is the sixth giant panda to be born at the zoo. The 21-year-old mother, Bai Yun, who gave birth on Sunday, was the first giant panda born in captivity in China and is on long-term loan in San Diego
Sea otters might be on the frontlines of the fight against global warming, according to a new study showing the fur-coated swimmers keep sea urchin populations in check, which in turn allows carbon dioxide-sucking kelp forests to prosper.
Researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, looked at 40 years of data on otters and kelp blooms from Vancouver Island to the western edge of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. They said they found that sea otters have a positive indirect effect on kelp biomass by preying on sea urchins…
The authors acknowledge that otters probably aren’t the answer to rising CO2 levels, a major contributing factor to global warming, but the researchers say their study illustrates the impact animals can have on the atmosphere.
“Right now, all the climate change models and proposed methods of sequestering carbon ignore animals. But animals the world over, working in different ways to influence the carbon cycle, might actually have a large impact,” UC Santa Cruz professor Chris Wilmers, a co-author of the study, said in a statement. “If ecologists can get a better handle on what these impacts are, there might be opportunities for win-win conservation scenarios, whereby animal species are protected or enhanced, and carbon gets sequestered.”
Ok, you know you want it:
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