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Beaked inhabitants of the world, unite

In a disturbing development, there are indications that birds, apparently pissed at the concerted assault on their habitat, are organizing to fight back against the man they hold responsible.

Also at issue are what birds claim are repeated efforts to shoot them in the head.

T. Rex with feathers

Yahoo News puts it this way:

Based on the small sample we've recovered, chickens may be the closest relatives (to T. rex)," says geneticist John Asara of Beth Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, co-leader of a team reporting the discovery of faint traces of chicken-like bone lining preserved inside a dinosaur drumstick.

Science says it this way:

Let’s Do This Thing

Step It Up is tomorrow — find a rally in your area! The time has come, the Gristers say, to march for many things: stop climate change, bring carbon down, and maybe find a fling. Ahem. What we mean is: Step It Up 2007 has arrived! Tomorrow — that’s Saturday, April 14 — thousands of […]

Marian Devil Just Doesn’t Have the Same Ring

Legendary Tasmanian devil faces relocation or extinction Australia is working to save the Tasmanian devil from extinction. Plagued by a contagious cancer, the carnivorous marsupial is dying out on its eponymous island. Scientists have sent nearly 50 of the beasts to zoos and want to move 30 more to nearby Maria Island, a former prison […]

Conoco Your Own Way

First major U.S. oil company joins coalition to limit greenhouse gases You thought the times were a-changin’ in the ’60s? Meet 2007, baby! This week, ConocoPhillips became the first major U.S. oil company to join the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of green groups and corporations begging Congress to impose federal limits on greenhouse […]

Umbra on baby gifts

The first step is to know what you want.

Psst, LNG, We Hear Florida’s Easy

Natural-gas projects denied in California, let pass in Maryland If liquefied natural gas is the beleaguered suitor, California is the popular girl who keeps turning down earnest proposals. Yet another LNG terminal, this one off the coast of Ventura County, is off to the bar to drown its sorrows after a state commission voted Monday […]

Will Johnson Stand Firm on Emissions?

EPA finalizes renewable-fuel standard, evaluates emissions ruling With much fanfare, the Bush administration has finalized a renewable-fuel standard for cars and trucks. The rule, mandated by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, requires 4.7 billion gallons of motor fuel — a little more than 4 percent of the total produced — to come from renewable […]

Read it all, yo

The piece on Grist in Outside magazine — which we mentioned here — is now online. You’ll want to read every last delicious word! And while you’re at it, enter their contest: send a funny Gristy headline for the piece to [email protected] and win a two-year subscription. One thing I wanted to say about it, […]

Dry As a Slightly Moist Bone

Aral Sea restoration project nets $126 million more from World Bank When is a sea not a sea? When it’s a desert. Over the last five decades, the inland Aral Sea — which straddles the border of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan — has shrunk to a fraction of its original size, thanks to Soviet policies that […]