Sony Dong - Song Bird Smuggler

Given away by bird poop on his socks, fancy pants here was charged Tuesday in California with smuggling exotic Asian songbirds from Vietnam into the United States by strapping them onto his legs.
Droppings on Sony Dong's socks and feathers peeking out from under a pant leg tipped off a Los Angeles International Airport inspector in March, who arrested the 46-year-old. Dong wore an elaborate set of leggings with buttoned cloth wrappings, which held more than a dozen birds.
The birds, now in quarantine, may be donated to a zoo.
National Geographic report HERE

Another World

A group of astronomers announced the discovery of the least massive planet yet detected outside of our solar system. It is lightweight enough--between two and three times the mass of Earth--to almost certainly be rocky like Earth rather than a huge ball of gas. Although the planet orbits too close to its star to be habitable, a new analysis of one of its neighbors suggests a world with deep oceans. All this raises the prospect of discovering an Earth-size planet orbiting at just the right distance from its star to give life a chance.
First discovered in 2007, Gliese 581d was originally calculated to be too far away from its host star—and therefore too cold—to support an ocean. But that has all changed.
Science Now article HERE
National Geographic article HERE

Ice Ice Baby

The rich life of Svalbard, Norway’s Arctic archipelago, faces a creeping thaw.
Arctic sea ice is shrinking as temperatures rise. In 2007 and 2008 sea ice dipped to the lowest extent on record.
National Geographic story HERE

The Long Awaited Return of the Jaguar

The largest cat in the Americas is alive and well in the heart of Mexico, scientists say. Three photographs of a male jaguar (including the one above, released February 10) and exactly 132 poop samples are the first known evidence of the predator since the early 1900s.
National Geographic story HERE

Whale Meets Man

Just a few hundred of these giants survive along the coasts of North America, but their numbers are growing in southern seas.
more HERE

A Flamingo Made of Flamingos

In 2007 National Geographic photographer Robert B. Haas captured this aerial photo of a flock of flamingo birds shaped like a giant flamingo!
more HERE

...it looks more like a duck...