1 hour ago by Rob Jordan Researchers at Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment are examining conservation plans for wild tigers that would promote gene flow among populations. Credit: Prasenjeet Yadav

(Phys.org) New research by Stanford scholars shows that increasing genetic diversity among the 3,000 or so tigers left on the planet is the key to their survival as a species.

Iconic symbols of power and beauty, wild tigers may roam only in stories someday soon. Their historical range has been reduced by more than 90 percent. But conservation plans that focus only on increasing numbers and preserving distinct subspecies ignore genetic diversity, according to the study. In fact, under that approach, the tiger could vanish entirely.

"Numbers don't tell the entire story," said study co-author Elizabeth Hadly, the Paul S. and Billie Achilles Professor in Environmental Biology at Stanford and senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. She is a co-author of the study, which was published April 17 in the Journal of Heredity.

That research shows that the more gene flow there is among tiger populations, the more genetic diversity is maintained and the higher the chances of species survival become. In fact, it might be possible to maintain tiger populations that preserve about 90 percent of genetic diversity.

Rachael Bay, a graduate student in biology at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station and the lead author of the study, said, "Genetic diversity is the basis for adaptation."

Loss of diversity

The research focused on the Indian subcontinent, home to about 65 percent of the world's wild tigers. The scientists found that as populations become more fragmented and the pools of each tiger subspecies shrink, so does genetic diversity. This loss of diversity can lead to lower reproduction rates, faster spread of disease and more cardiac defects, among other problems.

The researchers used a novel framework, based on a method previously employed to analyze ancient DNA samples, to predict what population size would be necessary to maintain current genetic diversity of tigers into the future. The authors believe this new approach could help in managing populations of other threatened species.

The results showed that for tiger populations to maintain their current genetic diversity 150 years from now, the tiger population would have to expand to about 98,000 individuals if gene flow across species were delayed 25 years. By comparison, the population would need to grow to about 60,000 if gene flow were achieved immediately.

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Diverse gene pool critical for tigers' survival

By KEITH HEUMILLER

Staff Writer

HAZLET Members of the township swim and tennis club could be swinging, climbing and lounging in the shade this summer, thanks to a newly unveiled capital improvement plan.

The upgrades, which include a 66-foot zip line, two rock walls, outdoor table games, nine new shade tents, and a number of landscape and facilities improvements, will be phased in beginning this year.

The project may be the largest of its kind in the history of the club, according to Township Administrator Dennis Pino.

We are thinking completely outside the box about ways that we can enhance the experience there, to maybe attract new residents who may not have come before and also to benefit our members as well, he said.

As of April 11, the township was soliciting bids for the two rock walls, expected to cost about $38,000 total and stand about 9 feet above the clubs diving tank.

While the actual operation of the rock walls will be up to the club director, Pino said township officials have ensured they will be safe and secure for the clubs youngsters.

Theyll be wet and probably slipping and having a great time, he said.

The township has already ordered the zip line, which is to be installed near the pool at a cost of about $19,000. Pino said riders will sit in a pedestal-style seat and swing from one platform to another over a protective layer of rubber mulch.

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Pool upgrades include rock wall, zip line

The first time I saw Camden's Harrison Avenue landfill, it had been closed for years. It was also on fire.

I'd been dispatched by an editor to check on a report that the grass atop the toxic tundra of buried trash was ablaze again. And so it was, on a hot afternoon in the late 1970s.

Last week, I returned to Harrison Avenue to tour the $68 million Salvation Army Kroc Center, which is on schedule for an Oct. 4 ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The project's cost includes $21 million for 34 acres of site remediation work by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Of the $59 million provided by the estate of Ray and Joan Kroc, of McDonald's fame, $27 million has been set aside to endow the center and help pay operating costs.

But clichs are boring. Besides, if I had a buck for every Camden project I've heard proclaimed as a game-changer for the city, I'd have enough cash to change my own game, and then some.

"The hardest thing has been to get people to believe it's happening," says Salvation Army Maj. Paul Cain, the center's administrator.

Nevertheless, many have come to believe: Campbell Soup, Subaru, Wells Fargo, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and New Jersey American Water have helped raise $9.2 million, and counting, of the $10 million local match required by the Krocs.

The water company alone has contributed $1.2 million, including, just last week, a $175,000 advance on a future refund of connection fees.

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In Camden, salvation sprouts in unlikely location

Chakrabongse Villas - Bangkok - Thailand
Info Booking! : http://www.hotelz.tv/info/thailand/bangkok/eFCbkLQReF/chakrabongse-villas.html A former royal residence by the Chao Phraya River Chakrabong...

By: Hotelz Tv - Thailand

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Chakrabongse Villas - Bangkok - Thailand - Video

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ( GS ) is contemplating the closure of its dark pool trading segment - Sigma X, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal . However, there has been no official revelation.

Before analyzing the facts that may have prompted Goldman to consider the closure, let us take a look at the concept of dark-pool trading.

Basics of Dark Pool Trading

Dark pool trading, also known as 'off exchange trading', is stock trading in private platforms wherein the secrecy of investors (who are largely institutional investors) is guarded well in comparison to public exchanges. The crux of dark-pool trading is that there is less transparency in trading, minimizing the market impact. Further, price and volumes of trade are predetermined and are only revealed after the trade. Owing to this, such investors reap the advantage of efficient price movement and lower transaction costs.

Notably, dark pool trading is under constant vigilance by regulators as it allows a section of investors and traders to gain at the cost of a general investor.

Goldman's Sigma X Falling from Heights?

Goldman added Sigma X in its operations in 2006 and currently stands as one of the largest dark pools in the market. Other major players in this space include Barclays PLC ( BCS ), Morgan Stanley ( MS ) and UBS AG ( UBS ).

However, the dark-pool market is largely scattered. Further, the industry is combating troubled times with increasing competition. Further, technical faults and issues have heightened the associated risks.

Notably, Sigma X was hit by a pricing error in 2011 that caused many of its clients to incur losses. Goldman is evaluating the optimality of running Sigma X, given the current headwinds across the dark pool trading industry.

Bottom Line

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Will Goldman Shed Darkness by Shutting Dark Pool? - Analyst Blog

S

Where on Earth is this freaky lava pool? Why do people hate love locks? Is it true that fire ants love the suburbs? And what do the soon-to-be-lost sounds of the industrial age sound like? All your answers are here, in this week's landscape reads!

Who hates love? People who care about bridges, apparently. As the fad has grown among the romantically inclined, small footbridges in Paris now groan under the additional metal of an estimated 700,000 locks. And these tiny tokens of affection, taken together, are weighing down the city's aging infrastructure. [The Guardian]

Fire ants first arrived by ship as stowaways from South America in the 1930s, but, for decades, they spread in only a fifty-mile radius around the port of Mobile, Alabama. Then Americans moved out into the suburbs, buying shrubs and sod for their picket-fenced lawns. And fire ants hitched a ride again, as nurseries transported plants and soil across state lines; soon enough, fire ants had invaded the entire South. This piece by Justin Noble is from July, but it was just selected for the Best Science and Nature Writing of 2013, and it's well worth revisiting. [Nautilus]

Torsten Nilsson curates a curious place in Sweden called the Museum of Work. As he's been collecting old factory equipment, he realized that these machines may persist in museums but no one will know what they sound like in use. He's decided to do something about that. "The resulting archive of 600 recordings will focus exclusively on things that clang, screech, hiss, grind, roar, and clatterthat is, noises most of us try to avoid," writes Christ Wright in the introduction to his lovely interview with the Swedish curator. You can also listen to some of the sounds below. [The Boston Globe]

When a mystery chemical spilled into West Virginia's river this January, we wondered how we could know so little about a chemical being stored so close to drinking water. In typical New Yorker fashion, Evan Osnos unravels the tangled web of lobbying and backroom deals that cozied the state up to big business while putting its citizens'- health at risk. [The New Yorker]

Photo: NASA Earth Observatory shared this unearthly photo of the Halema'uma'u Crater in Hawaii this past week. This lava lake formed in the crater just 6 years ago, slowly expanding into a pit over 500 feet across. The lava had sunken slightly from the day before, leaving the glowing cracks on its barely cooled surface. Photo by USGS.

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Where on Earth is this freaky lava pool?

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Simon Rios/The Standard-Times Chuck Smiley, owner and operator of the Captain Haskell's Octagon House on Union Street, says the economy and increased competition have made the business harder than ever.

By SIMN RIOS

April 06, 2014 12:00 AM

NEW BEDFORD Before the Fairfield Inn arrived, about the only lodging available downtown was a handful of bed and breakfasts.

Now, with the expected construction of a second downtown hotel, the lodging landscape is poised to change once again.

Not everyone is happy about it.

"Prior to the hotel we were getting a chunk of people who were just happening by, looking for a place to stay (in New Bedford)," said Chuck Smiley, owner of Captain Haskell Octagon House, a Union Street B&B.

Now, he said, "I don't think I'm getting those people."

Smiley said the opening of the 106-room Fairfield Inn & Suites in June 2010 cut deep into his occupancy rates, which are about 50 percent of his most successful year. And with a proposed 141-room hotel at the landmark Rodman Candleworks building, Smiley said it could force him to close.

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Lodging landscape changing in New Bedford

Bergen County, Northern NJ (PRWEB) April 04, 2014

A recent study by the China Agricultural University and Purdue University revealed that 1 in every 5 adults has admitted to peeing in a swimming pool. Most people believe that the chlorine in the pool will simply neutralize the urine and everyone will be fine. This is not necessarily the case. Whats more alarming about the study is that when uric acid, a byproduct of urine, combines with chlorine it creates a new chemical called cyanogen chloride. Cyanogen chloride is a gas that when inhaled can be harmful to the central nervous system, heart and lungs. Healthline News says that cyanogen chloride is a schedule 3 controlled substance by the U.S. Chemical Weapons Convention due to the potential in being used in chemical warfare.

The WHO (World Health Organization) recommends that the maximum concentration of cyanogen chloride be 70 milligrams per liter or less for drinking water. The highest concentration the study observed was 33 milligrams per liter at 8 milligrams per liter of chlorine, which is a much higher concentration of chlorine than is found in the average pool. This is still deemed safe by the WHO revealing that there is no imminent threat of poisoning while peeing in the pool. Never the less, doing so adversely affects water and air quality and should be avoided as much as possible especially for indoor swimming pools because of the enclosed room.

The study only polled adults, but it can be assumed that the percentage of children who pee in a swimming pool is higher than the 20% of the adults who do. Homeowners may be wondering how they can protect themselves when having a large amount of bathers in their swimming pool? When hosting a large party over the summer with a lot of children, Chris Cipriano, President of Cipriano Landscape Design has some recommendations. The best way you can prepare is to make sure your pool is running at its maximum sanitation level when the party starts. In order to ensure this, I recommend running your filtration system for 48 hours prior to the party to allow your pool to turnover several times. He continues, If the pool is running at the maximum sanitization level it will be better prepared to handle the party. Turnover refers to how long it takes to filter all of the swimming pools water through the filtration system.

After the party is over Cipriano would also recommend running the filtration for another 48 hours to filter any contaminants that may have entered the water and also slightly increasing the amount of chlorine in the pool to help with the decontamination process. People have been safely using swimming pools for centuries so this isnt meant to scare anyone but rather provide some advice to keep a swimming pool as clean as possible. Obviously the best safety measure is to pee in the appropriate place, the bathroom, but these are some good precautionary measures that can be taken when planning a large party.

Celebrating 25 years in business, 15-time international award winner Cipriano Landscape Design distinguishes themselves from all other swimming pool & landscaping companies with their extensive design and construction experience. As a recognized national leader in custom residential & commercial landscaping, masonry and swimming pools, the Mahwah NJ firm has been offering complete estate transformations since 2001. With a design office headed by Certified NJ Landscape Architect William Moore, the Cipriano team has won 75 awards of excellence since 2006 and in 2013 was named by Pool And Spa News to their "Top 50 Pool Builders list.

Visit http://www.njcustomswimmingpools.com for more information.

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New Study Shows Peeing in A Swimming Pool Poses Health Risks

Published: Wednesday, April 2, 2014 at 6:01 a.m. Last Modified: Monday, March 31, 2014 at 10:55 p.m.

'The Ichetucknee and its run, the most beautiful landscape in the world.

Archie Carr, A Naturalist in Florida

So says a bronze plaque at the entrance to Ichetucknee Springs State Park. It was a canoe trip down the beautiful Ichetucknee that convinced Gov. Jeb Bush to create the first Florida Springs Task Force to consider how we could protect this priceless part of our heritage for future generations.

Florida's constitution proclaims that it shall be the policy of the state to protect ... its scenic beauty. Surely the Ichetucknee qualifies for that protection. Florida law also says the water management districts may give consideration to aesthetic and scenic values in setting the minimum flows.

But there is little beauty to be found in the Suwannee River Water Management District's final report on the minimum flows and levels (MFLs) for the Ichetucknee and lower Santa Fe rivers. While there is an acknowledgement that the growth of algae can alter the aesthetics of the river, in general beauty is dismissed from consideration because there is little quantitative information linking aesthetics and flow suitable for the establishment of MFL criteria.

In short, there are no metrics for beauty. The best the district can do is to conflate the aesthetic values with recreational values. The district measures recreational values in terms of how many inches of clearance there are between a tuber's posterior and the bottom of the river. It would be funny, if the result was not so tragic.

The district's minimum flow rule for the Ichetucknee provides that flow will be at least 343 cubic feet per second (cfs) 50 percent of the time. However, over the last decade, the actual median flow of the Ichetucknee as measured by the U.S. Geological Survey has been only 285 cfs. Yet the district's recovery plan has a goal of only restoring 3 cfs to the river.

The problem is that the more water there is for the rivers, the less water is available for big utilities and agribusiness. MFLs are seen as the way the district can squeeze the last few cubic feet of water per second out of water bodies in sharp decline.

The public is then reassured by being told something that is patently untrue: that the rivers' ecosystems will not be significantly harmed by giving out still more permits.

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Rob Williams: MFLs fail to protect beauty, rare species of Ichetucknee

TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) -

Due to warmer than average weather Tucson's swimming season is approaching rather quickly. It is important that parents take the necessary precautions to keep their children safe in and around water.

Drowning is 100 percent preventable and sadly each year it continues to occur in Tucson. The most effective way to prevent this tragedy is to create multiple layers of protection around pools and to rely on the ABC'S of drowning prevention.

According to a Tucson Fire Department release adults should adhere to the following ABC's of drowning prevention:

Active Adult Supervision

Is the first line of defense against drowning. The Designated Child Watcher (DCW) is responsible for supervising the children when they are in or near the water. The DCW agrees to supervise the children without distraction for a given period of time. The DCW is given a lifeguard whistle or neck wallet that serves to remind them of their responsibility. When another adult relieves them, the whistle is handed off to them. This ensures that there isn't a lapse in supervision.

Barriers

Perimeter Fencing: Every pool within Tucson city limits is required by law to have a five-foot high, permanently fixed fence that completely surrounds the perimeter of the pool.

Self-Closing/Self Latching Gates: All pool gates need to be self-closing and self-latching. To test your gate, open the gate to body width and release. The gate should swing close and completely latch on its own.

Check for Gaps or Openings: Make sure that pool fencing does not contain gaps exceeding four inches. Check the entire perimeter of the fence regularly to look for erosion or unusual spacing between the ground and the bottom of the fence.

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TFD reminder on ABCs of pool safety as swim season approaches