Two raccoons in the wood pile

I recently spotted these two young raccoons in our wood pile:

Photo: Marge Ishmael

Raccoons are featured in many examples of American Indian art and are considered a symbol of dexterity and the power of disguise. Known as cunning scavengers, raccoons rely heavily on their front paws. Raccoon is an Algonquin Indian word meaning "He who scratches with his hands." 

A Micmac Tribal Legend

• A Micmac tribal story of two blind men living by a river reveals a novel theory on the raccoon's markings. The two blind men were provided a wigwam to live in by a tribal member named Kluskap in the tale. Kluskap told the two blind men that they could get water by tying a rope to a tree by the river and then tying the other end of the rope to a bucket that they could then throw into the water. The first blind man who tried this ended up with a bucket of sand when a devious raccoon moved the bucket before he could haul any water in. Later, the same raccoon took two pieces of meat the men were cooking for themselves. These tricks led the men to fight with each other until Kluskap came back and found the raccoon laughing about what he'd done. Kluskap took a coal from the fire and made circles around the racoon's eyes and rings around his tail. The mask he put on the raccoon symbolized his thievery while the rings indicated the amount of times he tricked the men.

Curiosity and Fearlessness

• Many American Indian tribes also observed how curious and fearless raccoons seemed to be. If raccoons detect a food source they can get by foraging and taking from humans, they will gather in packs and work together to find meals. Different tribes that raccoons lived around would see how these animals would show no fear in seeking easy prey and would risk being seen by humans in order to come away with a bit of sustenance. These qualities gave the animal a reputation for being inquisitive without being afraid.

The Power of Disguise

• The bandit-style mask marking on the face of the raccoon is seen by some American Indians as a symbol of the masks we wear as humans to blend in with our surroundings. These can be figurative or literal. Tribal rituals and hunting outfits for different tribes would often employ elaborate masks for various symbolic or practical reasons.

Cleverness and Cunning

• The intelligence of the raccoon was respected by American Indians. The ability of these animals to find so many sources of food and know where to look to seek nourishment has been key to them surviving even amid urban sprawl. Tribes living near populations of raccoons would see how these creatures would measure the risk and reward ratio while trying to locate and acquire food. This would typically involve the raccoon displaying calculated strategies and methods to break into and steal food stores kept in places it might not seem possible for a typical scavenging animal to get to. These qualities also allowed the raccoon to avoid becoming prey itself, which Native Americans could also respect.

Obama honors Dylan at White House

President Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor, to Bob Dylan at the White House on Tuesday, insisting that there was "not a bigger giant in the history of American music" than the diminutive folk singer.  Dylan, whose long musical journey has seen him go from hero of 1960s counterculture to a guest of the White House, looked impassive behind dark aviator sunglasses as Obama honored him.

"By the time he was 23, Bob's voice, with its weight, its unique, gravelly power was redefining not just what music sounded like, but the message it carried and how it made people feel. Today, everybody from Bruce Springsteen to U2 owes Bob a debt of gratitude" Obama said. The 71-year-old, who has written more than 600 songs and won 11 Grammys, was described as a "modern-day troubador" and "one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century" in the award's official citation.  Below is Bob Dylan singing his year 2000 hit "Things Have Changed" from the Wonder Boys movie: 
http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/things-have-changed

"People are crazy and times are strange

 I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range

I used to care, but things have changed" [Bob Dylan]

Krugman: Greece will leave the Euro

Paul Krugman is in London this week and he was interviewed by BBC's Hardtalk (see following link) where he stated that he thinks Greece will leave the Euro: 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/9725121.stm

At a lecture on Tuesday night he gave a withering attack on the British coalition government for its austerity policy. Speaking to the BBC Today radio program, Krugman said the economy is "failing dismally yet the government is insisting it will not change course", something he believes comes down to the "vanity of politicians".  Pursuing austerity is "a deeply destructive policy" in a time of economic depression, he told Evan Davis. It is a time where cuts "are simply not good sense" he believes, but admits that with a stronger economy he would "turn into a fiscal hawk".  Krugman also appeared on BBC Newsnight this week - sitting opposite venture capitalist Jon Moulton and Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18281669

Guitarist Doc Watson dies aged 89

Blind guitarist, Doc Watson, died yesterday aged 89. He was widely considered a true American original who deeply influenced every guitarist – folk, jazz, or rock – in the past 50 years. He was lauded not just for his technical skill but his understanding of Appalachian culture and for his model behavior as a humble man.

According to the Chicago Tribune: "You can spot his picking style by its grace: It's as though his loss of eyesight had not only sharpened his hearing, but filled with light the conduit that connected his brain to his fingertips. What he imagined, he played.

Music was the heirloom that Watson, born Arthel Lane Watson in 1923, inherited from his father, named General Watson, himself a banjo player who taught his son a love and enthusiasm for stringed instruments. General was so fixed on his son's talent that, after he was confident of the younger Watson's skills, he built his son a fretless banjo from scratch.

On the family farm in rural North Carolina, a little island of desegregation allowed blues songs to mix alongside cowboy yodelers and gospel choirs. By his late teens, he was playing square dances at the local American Legion Hall and figuring out how to play fiddle lines on guitar. These adaptations became the substance of a style that drew on bluegrass "flatpicking" guitar technique.

Like Mississippi John Hurt, another veteran player who achieved greater fame after Bob Dylan and the success of the Newport Folk Festival had opened the gates for workingman blues, Watson had a voice that shined with optimism even when he was delivering bad news. His version of "Worried Man's Blues," for example, bounces along despite its message, the subtext being that the condition will pass with a new day.

And in Watson's hands, "Whiskey Before Breakfast" is one of the happiest, most wonderful guitar instrumentals you'll ever hear, a jaunt that seems to celebrate, not bemoan, a sip of rye before the morning coffee, as if he's frolicking toward the bottle."

IRIS - seismic monitor

The residents of Emilia Romagna in Italy’s industrial heartland were gingerly getting back to normal life after a 5.9 earthquake struck the region at 4 a.m. on May 20, killing seven people and forcing 7,000 into temporary shelters. Then disaster struck once again this morning when a 5.8 magnitude earthquake shook the region at just after 9 a.m., finishing off much of what was left standing and killing at least 16 people and raising the number of homeless to 14,000.

Italy suffers about 2,000 earthquakes a year with more than 3 million people living in seismic areas, according to the National Council of Geologists. Almost half of Italy's territory is at risk of a quake, with more than 6 million buildings in the affected seismic areas, the group said. The damage caused by the quake earlier this month was estimated at more than 200 million euros ($251 million) for the agriculture industry in the region.

A friend of mine is convinced that melting icecaps are triggering earthquakes....and keeping an eye on the IRIS seismic monitor -- recent earthquakes displayed on an interactive earthquake map: http://www.iris.edu/seismon/

Peru dolphin deaths mystery deepens

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/23/us-peru-dolphins-idUSBRE84M1BY20120523

The mystery surrounding the deaths of at least 877 dolphins in Peru has deepened as the government said human activity was not to blame but failed to pinpoint a natural cause for the massive die-off. A final report from the Peruvian government's Ocean Institute, which manages one of the world's richest marine ecosystems, said the dolphins did not die from a lack of food, hunting by fishermen, poison from pesticides, heavy metal contamination, an infection or a virus. It also said there was no conclusive evidence that linked seismic offshore exploration by oil companies to the deaths of the long-beaked common dolphins along the Andean country's northern coast. But it did leave open the possibility that abnormally warm surface water temperatures and high levels of algae may have played a role, saying further analysis would be needed to determine if any red and brown plankton species in the sea were toxic. 

"The dolphins were killed by natural causes and not due to any human activity - that is what you might say is the major conclusion," said Minister of Production Gladys Triveno, who oversees the government's Ocean Institute. However, ORCA, a local NGO, says the deaths occurred after seismic events - which locals attribute to exploration by oil companies - damaged the ears of the sound-sensitive mammals and caused them to surface too rapidly. "We found cells that had injuries due to bubbles that are associated with decompression sickness," said Carlos Yaipn-Llanos, director of ORCA. 

worldnews.msnbc.msn.com

5K Run for Rusty

Run for Rusty 5K

Sunday, June 10, 2012 @ 9:30 AM
1010 Sand Creek Drive
Chesterton, IN

Photo : NWI.com

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Event Summary:
June 10, 2012 Coffee Creek Watershed Preserve Registration- 8:30 a.m. Start time- 9:30 a.m

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Event Details:

The Run 4 Rusty 5k fundraiser is meant to serve as a great community event that will benefit an even greater cause. Mr. Adam Schultz, a phenomenal Chesterton High School teacher, is also the father of a lively 5 year old boy named Rusty. Rusty was recently diagnosed with a serious brain tumor, specifically known as pineoblastoma.  All proceeds of the Run 4 Rusty 5k will go to the Schultz family for medical bills, travel costs, and other necessary expenses.

Ticket Prices: Adult= $15.00, Child (12 and under)=$12.00

Included Benefits: Participants register before June 2nd receive a tee-shirt. One water station will be incorporated into the race route. Refreshments and music will be available at the post-race party. There will be a post-race raffle with tons of cool prizes, so be sure to bring some extra cash for raffle tickets.

Age groups: 14 & under; 15-19; 20-24; 25-29; 30-34; 35-39; 40-44; 45-49; 50-54; 55-59; 60-64; 65-69; 70 & over. (Prizes to the  overall male and female winner, and certificates to the top three finishers in each age division)

Memorial Day Poems

Today is Memorial Day -- a federal holiday observed annually in the United States on the last Monday of May. It is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.

Courtesy of the Washington Post, here are some poems about soldiers and war. Some idealize soldiers and hold up their triumphs on the battlefield as glorious; others reveal the ugliness of combat and condemn war as man’s great folly.

In Flanders Fields

by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae (written 1915)

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

--

Dulce et Decorum Est

by Wilfred Owen (written 1917-18)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori .

[The Latin words dulce et decorum est pro patria mor is from Horace and in English roughly means: It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.]

--

“Adieu to a Soldier”

by Walt Whitman (1872)

Walt Whitman, photographed in 1888. (Mathew B. Brady)

ADIEU, O soldier!

You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,)

The rapid march, the life of the camp,

The hot contention of opposing fronts—the long manoeuver,

Red battles with their slaughter,—the stimulus—the strong, terrific game,

Spell of all brave and manly hearts—the trains of Time through you, and like of you,

all

fill’d,

With war, and war’s expression.

Adieu, dear comrade!

Your mission is fulfill’d—but I, more warlike,

Myself, and this contentious soul of mine,

Still on our own campaigning bound,

Through untried roads, with ambushes, opponents lined,

Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis—often baffled,

Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out—aye here,

To fiercer, weightier battles give expression.

--

“There Will Come Soft Rains”

Sara Teasdale (1920)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,

And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,

If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

--

“For the Fallen”

by Laurence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,

England mourns for her dead across the sea.

Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,

Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal

Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,

There is music in the midst of desolation

And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;

They sit no more at familiar tables of home;

They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;

They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,

Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,

To the innermost heart of their own land they are known

As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.

--

And others:

“St. Crispin’s Day speech,” from Henry V (1599)

by William Shakespeare

“The Soldier”(1915)

by Rupert Brooke

“War Is Kind” (1899)

by Stephen Crane

“The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854)

by Sir Alfred, Lord Tennyson

“The Artilleryman’s Vision” (1871)

by Walt Whitman

“Aftermath”(1919)

Siegfried Sassoon

When Roman Britain slid into chaos

Interesting article on BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18159752 

"History tells us that complex societies do collapse. And the great constant, along with climate and economic forces, is human nature. Societies, then and now, are made by people, and they are often brought down by people. Rome in the 4th Century had been a great power defended by a huge army. A century later the power and the army had gone....Other strands in the collapse of the Roman West are more difficult to quantify, but they centre on "group feeling", the glue that keeps society working together towards common goals. Lose that and you get a kind of nervous breakdown in the social order, which leads to what archaeologists call "systems collapse"...The British historian Gildas (c 500-570) in his diatribe against contemporary rulers in the early 500s, looking back over the story of the Fall of Roman Britain, lists the military failures, but behind them he speaks bitterly of a loss of nerve and direction, a failure of "group feeling"." [BBC]

A humorous sketch about the Romans from Monty Python's "The Life of Brian" movie:

Now coveted: a walkable, convenient place

New York Times Sunday Review Opinion page -- "WALKING isn’t just good for you. It has become an indicator of your socioeconomic status": 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/opinion/sunday/now-coveted-a-walkable-convenient-place.html?src=me&ref=general

Paul Krugman on Leprechuans and Fairies

Paul Krugman talks about fairies and leprechauns in his New York Times blog today and yesterday:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

The fox in the bluebells

This stunning image of a fox surrounded by bluebells on the Guardian.co.uk website shows the beauty of British springtime at its best. The striking scene was captured by wildlife photographer Brian Bevan near his home in Potton, Bedfordshire. The 61-year-old rescued the orphaned vixen almost a year ago after her mother was hit by a car. Now the fox, called Anuska, loves going for a stroll, giving art teacher Brian some perfect picture opportunities. The father-of-three, who started photographing wildlife after inheriting a camera from his grandfather more than 50 years ago, says Anuska is fascinating to watch. 

I, the Lord of Sea and Sky and a May wedding

Photo: Martin & Sarah (by Marge)

Exactly one week ago, on Saturday May 19, I was at my nephew's joyful wedding in England surrounded by the "darling buds of May".  The bride looked radiant (see photo on right) and we sang many nice hymns in church, including "I, the Lord of Sea and Sky" or "Here I am Lord" as it's also known. "The darling buds of May" is from Shakespeare's sonnet 18: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May | And summer's lease hath all too short a date. This is an appropriate quote given that the wedding reception took place at Hoghton Tower in Lancashire -- and a young William Shakespeare was thought to have lived there as a tutor to the de Hoghton family. http://www.hoghtontower.co.uk/

Here's a version of "I, the Lord of Sea and Sky" as sung by John Michael Talbot:

Mystery illness in Polar Bears

Polar Bear showing signs of fur loss

Polar bears in Alaska have been seen with missing patches of fur and reports say that it may be due to a “mystery illness” related to the nuclear accident at the Fukushima power plant in Japan, although this has not yet been proved. Nine out of 33 bears studied were found to have alopecia — loss of fur — and skin lesions, Sky News reported. “There’s a lot we don’t know yet, whether we’re dealing with something that’s different or something that’s the same,” said Tony DeGange, chief biologist for the US Geological Survey (USGS) Science Centre in Alaska. A similar illness has killed around 60 ringed seals in the region. Unlike the seals, the polar bears otherwise seem healthy and there have been no deaths. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear

As climate change melts sea ice, the U.S. Geological Survey projects that two thirds of polar bears will disappear by 2050. Rapid Arctic ice melt in 2011:

• Arctic sea ice extent for January 2011 was the lowest in the satellite record for that month. 
• The winter's maximum Arctic sea ice extent tied for the lowest on record. The year saw the second lowest Arctic ice levels since 1979 when observation began. 
• A female polar bear reportedly swam for nine days nonstop across the Beaufort Sea before reaching an ice floe, losing 22 percent of her weight and her cub.

Mother polar bear with cub

WWF discusses threats to polar bears:

http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/finder/polarbear/threats.html

56 Up

I'm looking forward to seeing the new 56-Up in the Up Series of documentary films produced by Granada TV that have followed the lives of 14 British children since 1964, when they were all seven years old. It's absurd but I feel as though I know these people. The documentary has an episode every seven years. The idea for the program was inspired by the Jesuit saying: 'Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man' based on a quotation by Ignatius Loyola...and for at least some of the children involved, their lives have panned out pretty much as one would have expected. 

According to Wikipedia: "The children were selected to represent the range of socio-economic backgrounds in Britain at that time, with the explicit assumption that each child's social class predetermines their future. Every seven years, the director Michael Apted, films new material from as many of the fourteen as he can get to participate. The purpose is also stated at the beginning of "7 Up," as, "Why do we bring these children together? Because we want to get a glimpse of England in the year 2000. The union leader and the business executive of the year 2000 are now 7 years old."


I've always felt that Neil Hughes (photo below) from Liverpool was the "emotional heart" of the series.  In the first episode he was a sweet little Liverpudlian boy who subsequently struggled with adult life and mental illness, including a period of homelessness in Scotland and Shetland. He was last seen getting his life together as a Lib Dem councillor in Cumbria. Vulnerable and a bit lost, it is impossible to watch this series and not want him to find some happiness. Sadly, in 56 Up he seems more despairing, revealing that he has aspirations as a writer but that nobody seems interested. Another of my favorites is Bruce, the kind and likable maths teacher who has taken time out to help Neil over the years. I'm also fond of Nick, the shy physicist from Yorkshire, now living and teaching in the US, on his second marriage, seemingly happy but finding the making of the films emotionally draining. His background - growing up on a farm in the north of England and then moving to the United States - is similar to my own.

Photo of Neil Hughes: ITV

Director, Michael Apted, feels that 56 Up is different to the rest.  "Somewhere between 49 and 56 they've become more empowered. They took charge this time and that's good.  It's partly because they're in their 50s now but it's also about them being a bit more savvy."

Telegraph review: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9265682/56-Up-episode-1-ITV1-review.html

Facial cancers in Tasmanian Devils

I've been reading about Tasmanian devils today - which remind me of my ferocious miniature dachshund (Mr. Peabody). They are feisty marsupials that live only on the Australian island of Tasmania. They are an endangered species due to a fatal and mysterious epidemic of devil facial tumor disease, which has wiped out large numbers of them.  Large tumors form on the faces and necks of the animals, making it impossible for them to eat. Many of the afflicted animals subsequently die of starvation.  A spokesperson for the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program, a joint effort by the state government and the University of Tasmania said: "It's a stark warning about how suddenly and dramatically things can change....Usually a disease will peter out in time, but we're just not seeing that." 

Photo: National Geographic

Photo: Wikipedia



More links below:
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/tasmanian-devil/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease


Here's a Warner Bros. cartoon with Daffy Duck and the Tasmanian Devil (Taz):

Royal tyrants to celebrate Queen's Diamond Jubilee

Bahrain's King Hamad al-Khalifa and
Swaziland's King Mswati III are both expected

Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has condemned the Queen's decision to invite "dictator monarchs" to her Diamond Jubilee celebrations today. She will host the royal autocrats for lunch at Windsor Castle and for dinner at Buckingham Palace. "It is outrageous that the Queen has invited royal tyrants to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee. She should not host the monarchs of countries such as Brunei, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Swaziland and United Arab Emirates. All of them preside over regimes that abuse human rights,” said Mr Tatchell, who is Director of the human rights campaign group, the Peter Tatchell Foundation.

“Inviting blood-stained despots brings shame to our monarchy and tarnishes the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. It is a kick in the teeth to pro-democracy campaigners and political prisoners in these totalitarian royal regimes."

“The invitations should be withdrawn immediately, as a mark of respect for those who have been murdered, arrested, jailed and tortured."

"Buckingham Palace's refusal to confirm the guest list is arrogant and anti-democratic. As the Head of State of a democratic nation, the Queen should be transparent and accountable to the public. This secrecy and evasion is the enemy of democracy. The vast majority of the British people would not want the Queen to wine and dine these vile dictators."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18099937

Bolt from the blue

The new French President's plane was hit by lightening on his way to his first Euro crisis talk in Berlin with Angela Merkel yesterday.  The Falcon 7X aircraft was hit by lightning shortly after take-off. French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed their desire to keep the eurozone together just hours after France's new leader was inaugurated. With all eyes on their first-ever talks, the two leaders also vowed that the two European powerhouses were aware of their responsibilities and ready to help find solutions to the eurozone crisis.

Hanging over the meeting was the grim news from Athens, which is now set to hold another round of elections likely on June 17 after efforts to form a government after inclusive polls foundered, setting up yet another month of brinkmanship at the crippled heart of the eurozone.

More at this link: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/bolt-from-the-bleu-euro-crisis-talks-834870

The Mystery of Five Mass Extinctions

Are humans causing a mass extinction on the magnitude of the one that killed the dinosaurs? Mass extinctions have served as huge reset buttons that dramatically changed the diversity of species found in oceans all over the world, according to a comprehensive study of fossil records. Live Science looks at the many unsolved mysteries which remain regarding these disasters, perhaps the greatest of which is what caused each of them. Research is uncovering how these extinction events dictated the fate of life on this planet—for instance, determining which animals first crawled onto land and which ruled the oceans. The main suspects behind these catastrophes seem to come either from above, in the form of deadly asteroids or comets, or from below in the form of extraordinarily massive volcanism. Here are the five greatest mass extinctions over the past 500 million years, each of which is thought to have annihilated anywhere from 50 to 95 percent of all species on the planet.

Will 75 % of Earth's species go the way of the dodo?
CREDIT: Dreamstime

The K-T extinction

The most recent of the Big Five is the most familiar one—the cataclysm that ended the Age of the Dinosaurs. The end-Cretaceous or Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, otherwise known as K-T, killed off all dinosaurs save birds roughly 65 million years ago, as well as roughly half of all species on the planet, including pterosaurs. Not only did mammals sweep across the planet after K-T, but sharks expanded across the seas, explained American Museum of Natural History vertebrate paleontologist Jack Conrad. "Throughout the Age of Dinosaurs, you always had these large reptile carnivores dominating the water, such as ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs and plesiosaurs," Conrad explained. "Only after they die do you see big sharks becoming really prevalent. You probably wouldn't have seen orcas or blue whales either had reptile dominance of the seas not gone by the wayside." Although research suggests the planet was on the verge of environmental upheaval before the K-T extinction event, the straw that broke the dinosaur's back is widely thought to have been an impact with an asteroid or comet. Still, a number of researchers contend evidence commonly linked with such an impact, such as the metal iridium, which is rare on the Earth's crust, could also be caused by the massive volcanic eruptions at the Deccan Flats in India, another popular contender for the dinosaur-killing catastrophe. 

The Triassic-Jurassic extinction

The end-Triassic, or Triassic-Jurassic extinction event about 200 million years ago is thought by many to possibly have set dinosaurs on the path to their 135-million-year domination of much of life on Earth. It also ended life for roughly half of all species. Until this disaster, mammal-like creatures known as therapsids were actually more numerous than the ancestors of the dinosaurs, known as archosaurs. "The dinosaurs definitely survived better than the early proto-mammals did, and the extinction event might have entirely tipped it in their favor," said Rutgers University paleobiologist George McGhee. Of the Big Five, the Triassic-Jurassic extinction has the fewest number of scientists currently researching it, "although that's changing right now," said Columbia University paleoecologist Paul Olsen. Its cause remains under great debate, with the best contender so far being the massive volcanic eruptions at the "Central Atlantic magmatic province," a region that encompassed a staggering 4.2 million square miles (11 million square kilometers), an area larger than Canada. Another main possibility could be an astronomical impact, Olsen said, although as with the K-T event, the evidence for both types of catastrophe can get maddeningly blurry.

The Permian-Triassic extinction

The largest of the Big Five was the end-Permian or Permian-Triassic extinction event roughly 250 million years ago, which eliminated as much as 95 percent of the planet's species. Before this extinction, marine animals were mostly filter feeders stuck in place on the seafloor, such as crinoids or "sea lilies." Afterward, the seas became far more complex with mobile creatures such as snails, urchins and crabs. The most likely final trigger for the end-Permian was again massive volcanism, this time at the Siberian Traps, which spewed as much as 2.7 million square miles (7 million square kilometers) of lava out, an area nearly as large as Australia. Recent evidence suggests, however, that the end-Permian may have been long in the making.

The late Devonian extinctions

The late Devonian extinction events were actually two sharp pulses of death about 360 million years ago, each just 100,000 to 300,000 years apart. Each pulse was accompanied by a massive drop in temperature, with the steaming seas of the Devonian—surface temperatures of which were about 93 degrees F (34 degrees C)—dropping to about 78 degrees F (26 degrees C), "and marine organisms would not have liked that at all," McGhee said. As to what caused these cold snaps, the ever-popular suspects are ash and dust kicked up by either astronomical impacts or massive volcanism.

At that time, plants had made it onto land, as had spiders, scorpions and similar creatures. Right before the extinction events, the first proto-amphibians made it onto shore. However, the invasion of the so-called elpistostegalians—distant relatives of the coelacanth—"got wiped out by these extinction events," McGhee explained. "It wasn't until at least another 10 million years later that we got footprints from vertebrates on land again, this time from the ichthyostegalians, the proto-amphibians we're all descended from. Who knows how the world might have been different."

The Ordovician-Silurian extinctions

The earliest of the Big Five, the end-Ordovician or Ordovician-Silurian extinction events some 444 million years ago, are reckoned by many to be the second largest. These also consisted of a pair of die-offs, apparently involving massive glaciation and a resulting fall in sea levels. The cause of this glaciation remains a mystery, but one idea was that land plants actually caused it, pulling so much carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere that global cooling resulted, McGhee explained. Curiously, even though the end-Ordovician led to a huge loss of life, in a way it actually had very little impact on the persistence of lineages. Although the four other Big Five extinction events led to huge changes in which animals rose to prominence, the same animals that dominated before the end-Ordovician dominated afterward. Otherwise, "one neat thing about mass extinction events is that they're often reset buttons, where you change what dominates the globe," Conrad said. "You open the door to things like us to live."

UN official calls for return of Native American land

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The UN human rights investigator said on Friday that the United States must do more to heal the wounds of indigenous peoples caused by more than a century of oppression, including restoring control over
lands that Native Americans consider sacred. “The sense of loss, alienation and indignity is pervasive throughout Indian country” the UN official said in a statement released Friday. “It is evident that there have still not been adequate measures of reconciliation to overcome the persistent legacies of the history of oppression, and that there is still much healing that needs to be done.”  He pointed to the loss of tribal lands as a particularly sore point, naming the Black Hills of South Dakota and the San Francisco Peaks in Arizona as places where indigenous peoples feel they have “too little control”. Mount Rushmore, a popular tourist attraction, is located in the Black Hills, which the Sioux tribe consider to be sacred and have territorial claims to based on an 1868 treaty. Shortly after that treaty was signed, gold was discovered in the region. The US Congress passed a law taking over the land. The US Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that the seizure of the land was illegal and ordered the government to pay compensation. But the Sioux rejected the money and continue to demand the return of the now public lands.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17966113