Monday 28 March 2011

The Week, The Liben Lark and Using Snail Slime to Treat Wrinkles

Hi. Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful.

Quote of the week this week is from "The Week" the news-recapping magazine-

"Until last week, I'd never heard of the Liben lark, a diminutive songbird living in a remote corner of Southern Ethiopea, but its fate, according to the naturalist Michael McCarthy may mark "a milestone in our destruction of the planet". For there are now fewer than 100 Liben larks left and it's very likely that within five years, there'll be none....the Liben lark is set to become the first bird from Africa to go extinct in recorded history. McCarthy guesses that some 200 species of birds have disappeared over the last 500 years, from the dodo to the great auk. But mainland Africa is so vast and robust that "at least in ornithological terms, it has been able to soak up the punishment [that] we humans have increasingly inflicted on its ecosystems."....A week ago, the Ethiopean ambassador to London (sic) was presented with a cheque for £242,000 raised by last year's British Birdwatching Fair in Rutland, to fund general conservation work on the Liben plain...."
-Jolyon Connell published in The Week, 19th March 2011)

The Liben lark is also known as the Sidamo Lark, Heteromirafra sidamoensis. You can find out more about it [HERE].

Today's other link is both weird and- potentially beautiful- the use of Snail slime
as an anti-wrinkle cream.... Now admittedly, this was published in a tabloid newspaper, so I make no guarantees about its accuracy or truthfulness, but it is an interesting story-
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3493885/Snail-slime-cream-to-be-showcased-in-Milan.html

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