Wildfires kill condor chick
California’s rampant wildfires have claimed an icon of conservation biology: a condor chick burned in its nest at Big Sur, on the Pacific coast. Wildlife biologists had enough warning to arrange a helicopter airlift for eight captive-bred adult condors awaiting release from holding cages in the same area.
Satellite clean-up
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Space junk may sit in orbit longer than we hoped. Solar storms clear out debris in low-Earth orbit by heating up the atmosphere so it drags junk down. Yet many forecasters think the next solar cycle will be pretty tranquil. If true, thousands more fragments than expected will remain, according to David Whitlock of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and colleagues.
Anthrax payout
The US government will pay $5.8 million over 20 years to Steven Hatfill, named by the Department of Justice as a “person of interest” in the 2001 anthrax attacks. Hatfill, formerly a scientist at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland, protested his innocence, and was suing the government for violating his privacy. The payment settles the case.
Junk-food babies blighted
Here’s another reason to stay away from bad food. Pregnant rats fed junk food including doughnuts, muffins, crisps and sweets had offspring which remained fatter and abnormally prone to diabetes and heart disease, even if the pups themselves ate healthily (The Journal of Physiology, vol 586, p 3219).
Bees stop traffic
A truck carrying 12 million bees overturned on Monday morning on a highway in New Brunswick, Canada. A fire truck was brought in to spray the beehives in an attempt to keep the increasingly agitated insects cool and calm. Police advised drivers to stay in their cars.