7 Breathtaking Aquariums Around The World

1 – Dubai aquarium in the Dubai Mall
Stingrays swim in the Dubai aquarium in the Dubai Mall, which covers the area of 50 soccer pitches.
The Dubai Aquarium – vast, entertaining, an engineering marvel, three storeys tall and featuring glass ‘walk-through’ tunnels that contain exotic marine life.

2 – Georgia Aquarium, Atlanta
World’s Largest Aquarium, Georgia Aquarium,Atlanta, a wonderful home for more than 100,000 animals of 500 different species (notable specimens: whale sharks, beluga whales, manta ray) and with a capacity of 8.1 million US gallons (31,000 m³) of marine fresh water

3 – Churaumi AquariumWorld’s
Second Largest Aquarium , Churaumi Aquarium,part of the Ocean Expo Commemorative National Government Park located in Motobu, Okinawa, Japan; capacity: 7,500-cubic meters (1,981,290 gallons) of water; one of the few places where visitors can see a great variety of sea creatures including sharks and manta rays.

First DNA Barcodes Of Commonly Traded Bushmeat: New Tool For Tracking Global Trade In Wildlife

Leather handbags and chunks of red meat: when wildlife specialists find these items in shipping containers, luggage, or local markets, they can now use newly published genetic sequences known as “DNA barcodes” to pinpoint the species of origin. Experts hope that this simple technique will track the harvesting of bushmeat (or wildlife hunted largely in Asia, South and Central America, and Africa) and will ultimately crack down on the widespread and growing international trade in bushmeat, a market estimated to be worth as much as $15 billion in 2008.

According to a paper published in the early online edition of Conservation Genetics (DOI 10.1007/s10592-009-9967-0), barcodes can ably and quickly distinguish among a large number of commercially traded species, so that a handbag is identified as caiman or Nile crocodile, and the meat as duiker or mangabey.

Legal Ban On Declawing?

Considered mutilation by many, a simple mention of the word “declaw” warrants an adamant response from even nonfeline fans. Even though the vocal aversion to declawing is already a no-brainer to most of you, the recently proposed ban on the procedure here in SF has earned (what may appear to be) some unlikely challengers — the SPCA.
Even though the organization both opposes the procedure and doesn’t practice onychectomy at its hospital, it doesn’t agree with legal regulation and SFSPCA President Jan McHugh-Smith worries the proposed law could have other negative side effects:

“The SFSPCA is opposed to declawing . . . but we are concerned about the option being taken away from the guardian. They could potentially give up the pet, and it could end up in a shelter and end up being euthanized.”

So the argument is not just about the morality of the procedure but on the involvement of politics in medicine and that city council members have no place regulating such procedures — what’s your take?

(source)

Monkey Malaria: Is It The Next Virus ?

The study, financed by UK charity the Wellcome Trust, examined the clinical and laboratory features of the P. knowlesi strain of malaria, which until recently was thought to predominantly infect monkeys in Southeast Asia.

Researchers led by professors Balbir Singh and Janet Cox-Singh of the University Malaysia Sarawak found that the malaria strain was widespread among humans in Malaysia and neighboring countries. Their research confirmed that P. knowlesi is a fifth strain of malaria that can prove fatal in humans, unlike a similar but usually benign strain called P. malariae.

“P. knowlesi malaria can easily be confused with P. malariae since these two parasites look similar by microscopy,” Singh said. “In fact, because the P. knowlesi parasites reproduce every 24 hours in the blood, the disease can be potentially fatal.”