Gizmorama - January 23, 2013

Good Morning,

Today, I have three excellent stories from the scientific community for your reading pleasure. So, let's get right to it.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Satellites, GPS help combat bird strikes --*
PARIS - A European project using satellite data and bird tracking could trim bird strikes that have killed hundreds of people in the last two decades, researchers say. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration says bird strikes have killed more than 231 people and destroyed over 220 aircraft worldwide since 1988. The European Space Agency, in partnership with the air forces and research institutions of several European countries, has been conducting a FlySafe project that uses weather and environmental data from Earth-observing satellites and tracking of individual birds from space using global positioning system tags. The information is combined with local migration information from ground radar to improve national bird-warning systems. "Air forces use the system in combination with their surveillance radars for en route bird strike prevention, during low-flying exercises, for example," said Siete Hamminga, head of the Dutch company Robin Radar Systems, which has been offering a commercial version of the system. "With their long-range detection, these systems can scan hundreds of kilometers around. When a bird strike risk through high migration densities is identified, it is relatively easy for air forces to postpone flights or bring them in," Hamminga said in a release from ESA's Paris headquarters. The space agency's involvement has provided a "significant contribution to the rise of Robin. "This is the explosive mixture you get when combining applied science with entrepreneurship."


*-- Smuggled fossils returning to Mongolia --*
ULAN BATOR, Mongolia - Mongolia says dinosaur fossils recovered after being illegally smuggled into the United States will be part of a new museum's exhibits. They will join about 500 dinosaur skeletons at the country's Paleontological Center of Academy of Sciences and Natural History Museum to form the core of a new museum dedicated exclusive to dinosaurs, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday. The new museum, dubbed the Central Dinosaur Museum of Mongolia, will include Tyrannosaurus Bataar and Saurolophus and Oviraptor fossils smuggled illegally to the United States and being returned to their homeland by the U.S. government. The 70-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton unearthed in Mongolia's southern Gobi desert was sold at a New York auction for more than $1 million but was seized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after Mongolia said it was illegally smuggled.


*-- Kenya to try anti-poaching technology --*
NAIROBI, Kenya - Kenya's wildlife agency says it plans to install an alarm and notification system around some parks and wildlife sanctuaries in an effort to combat poaching. Kenya Wildlife Service officials said they hoped the system, connected to fences around selected reserves, would help reduce poaching by up to 90 percent. If an animal interferes with the fence or if someone tries to tear down or slip through the fence, the alarm will sound and will also send a text message to wildlife rangers who can then converge on the affected area, the British newspaper The Guardian reported. However, putting the alarm system in all Kenyan parks is impractical since the costs would be extremely high and some parks and sanctuaries are not wholly fenced in, officials said. "Some parks are very big and the idea would only work in conservancies, which have a much smaller land area," Patrick Omondi, head of the species department at the wildlife service, said. Tsavo National Park, where an entire family of elephants was recently killed by poachers, is about the size of Belgium. Kenya lost more than 360 elephants to poaching last year, government figures show. Across Africa more than 1,000 rhinos and more than 1,000 elephants were lost last year, the victims of poaching driven in large part by demand in Southeast Asia for animal parts considered to have medicinal properties.

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