Primitive and Peculiar Mammal May Be Hiding Out in Australia

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It’d be hard to think of a mammal that’s weirder than the long-beaked, egg-laying echidna. Or harder to find.


Scientists long thought the animal, which has a spine-covered body, a four-headed penis, and a single hole for reproducing, laying eggs, and excreting waste, lived only in New Guinea. The population of about 10,000 is critically endangered. Now there is tantalizing evidence that the echidna, thought to have gone extinct in Australia some 10,000 years ago, lived and reproduced there as recently as the early 1900s and may still be alive on Aussie soil.


The new echidna information comes from zoologist Kristofer Helgen, a National Geographic emerging explorer and curator of mammals at the Smithsonian Institution. Helgen has published a key finding in ZooKeys confirming that a skin and skull collected in 1901 by naturalist John T. Tunney in Australia is in fact the western long-beaked echidna, Zaglossus bruijnii. The specimen, found in the West Kimberley region of Western Australia, was misidentified for many years.


(More about echidnas: Get to know this living link between mammals and reptiles.)


Helgen has long been fascinated by echidnas. He has seen only three in the wild. “Long-beaked echidnas are hard to get your hands on, period,” he said. “They are shy and secretive by nature. You’re lucky if you can find one. And if you do, it will be by chance.” Indeed, chance played a role in his identification of the Australian specimen. In 2009, he visited the Natural History Museum of London, where he wanted to see all of the echidnas he could. He took a good look in the bottom drawer of the echidna cabinet, where the specimens with less identifying information are often stored. From among about a dozen specimens squeezed into the drawer, he grabbed the one at the very bottom.


(Related from National Geographic magazine: “Discovery in the Foja Mountains.”)


“As I pulled it out, I saw a tag that I had seen before,” Helgen said. “I was immediately excited about this label. As a zoologist working in museums you get used to certain tags: It’s a collector’s calling card. I instantly recognized John Tunney’s tag and his handwriting.”


John Tunney was a well-known naturalist in the early 20th century who went on collecting expeditions for museums. During an Australian expedition in 1901 for Lord L. Walter Rothschild’s private museum collection, he found the long-beaked echidna specimen. Though he reported the locality on his tag as “Mt Anderson (W Kimberley)” and marked it as “Rare,” Tunney left the species identification field blank. When he returned home, the specimen was sent to the museum in Perth for identification. It came back to Rothschild’s museum identified as a short-beaked echidna.


With the specimen’s long snout, large size, and three-clawed feet, Helgen knew that it must be a long-beaked echidna. The short-beaked echidna, still alive and thriving in Australia today, has five claws, a smaller beak, and is half the size of the long-beaked echidna, which can weigh up to 36 pounds (16 kilograms).



As Helgen began tracing the history and journey of the specimen over the last century, he crossed the path of another fascinating mind who had also encountered the specimen. Oldfield Thomas was arguably the most brilliant mammalogical taxonomist ever. He named approximately one out of every six mammals known today.


Thomas was working at the Natural History Museum in London when the Tunney echidna specimen arrived, still misidentified as a short-beaked echidna. Thomas realized the specimen was actually a long-beaked echidna and removed the skull and some of the leg bones from the skin to prove that it was an Australian record of a long-beaked echidna, something just as unexpected then as it is now.


No one knows why Thomas did not publish that information. And the echidna went back into the drawer until Helgen came along 80 years later.


As Helgen became convinced that Tunney’s long-beaked echidna specimen indeed came from Australia, he confided in fellow scientist Mark Eldridge of the Australian Museum about the possibility. Eldridge replied, “You’re not the first person who’s told me that there might be long-beaked echidnas in the Kimberley.” (That’s the Kimberley region of northern Australia.) Scientist James Kohen, a co-author on Helgen’s ZooKeys paper, had been conducting fieldwork in the area in 2001 and spoke to an Aboriginal woman who told him how “her grandmothers used to hunt” large echidnas.


This is “the first evidence of the survival into modern times of any long-beaked echidna in Australia,” said Tim Flannery, professor at Macquarie University in Sydney. “This is a truly significant finding that should spark a re-evaluation of echidna identifications from across northern Australia.”


Helgen has “a small optimism” about finding a long-beaked echidna in the wild in Australia and hopes to undertake an expedition and to interview Aboriginal communities, with their intimate knowledge of the Australian bush.


Though the chances may be small, Helgen says, finding one in the wild “would be the beautiful end to the story.”


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Meet Obama's Defense Secretary Nominee

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President Obama nominated former Senator Chuck Hagel as the next U.S. secretary of defense. To those who haven't followed the Senate closely in the past decade, he's probably not a household name.


Hagel is a former GOP senator from Nebraska and Purple-Heart-decorated Vietnam veteran, but he wouldn't necessarily be a popular pick with Republicans in Congress.


At age 21, Hagel and his brother Tom became the next in the family to serve in the United States Army. They joined the masses of Americans fighting an unfamiliar enemy in Vietnam.


In his book, he describes finding himself "pinned down by Viet Cong rifle fire, badly burned, with my wounded brother in my arms."


"Mr. President, I'm grateful for this opportunity to serve our country again," Hagel said after Obama announced his nomination Monday.


In 1971, Hagel took his first job in politics as chief of staff to Congressman John Y. McCollister, a position he held for six years. After that, he moved to Washington for the first time, where he went on to work for a tire company's government affairs office, the 1982 World's Fair and in 1981, as Ronald Reagan's Deputy Administrator of the Veterans Administration.








Obama Taps Sen. Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary Watch Video









Sen. Chuck Hagel's Defense Nomination Draws Criticism Watch Video









Obama's Defense Nominee Chuck Hagel Stirs Washington Lawmakers Watch Video





He worked in the private sector for most of the 80s and 90s before his first election to the Senate in 1997.
Since the turn of the century, Hagel has followed a curvy path of political alliances that puts his endorsements all over the map. Hagel's record of picking politically unpopular positions could be a large part of why Obama is naming him for the job, as Slate's Fred Kaplan surmises the next Defense secretary will be faced with tough choices.


In 2000, he was one of few Republican senators to back Sen. John McCain over then-presidential-candidate George W. Bush.


After that election, Hagel fiercely criticized Bush for adding 30,000 surge troops to Iraq, in place of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's proposal of a draw-down and regional diplomacy, which Hagel preferred. When Bush instead announced that more troops would go to Iraq, Hagel co-sponsored a nonbinding resolution to oppose it, along with then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.


"The president says, 'I don't care.' He's not accountable anymore," Hagel told Esquire in June 2007. "He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends how this goes."


Hagel's fierce opposition to America's involvement in Iraq – he called it one of the five monumental blunders of history, on par with the Trojan War – will be of substantial importance as the Obama administration charts our course out of Afghanistan, deciding how to withdraw the last of the troops in 2014 and how much of a presence to leave behind.


Hagel's support for McCain, which was substantial in his competition against Bush, disappeared in the 2008 election. Hagel toured Iraq and Afghanistan with Obama during his first campaign for the presidency.


In October 2008, Hagel's wife, Lillibet, announced her support for the Obama team, after the Washington Post reported on her donations to his campaign. She donated again in 2012.


Before the 2008 election, Hagel wrote: "The next president of the United States will face one of the most difficult national security decisions of modern times: what to do about an Iran that may be at the threshold of acquiring nuclear weapons."






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Historic inauguration on MLK holiday means federal workers lose a quadrennial holiday

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Inauguration Day normally entails an extra paid holiday for federal workers in the Washington area, but no such luck applies this year. That’s because the public swearing-in ceremony coincides with another federal holiday — the Jan. 21 observance of the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.


That means the historic event — the first African American president taking the oath of office on a holiday commemorating one of the nation’s most notable civil rights leaders — will cost the region’s government employees a quadrennial holiday, at least in terms of pay and leave.


The official Inauguration Day takes place every four years on Jan. 20, except when the date falls on a Sunday, as it does this year. When that happens, the federal holiday moves to the following Monday.

Since the observance of King’s birthday falls on the same day, government workers in the D.C. area will lose the extra paid time off they usually receive for the swearing-in ceremony.

Full-time federal employees are entitled to “in lieu of” holidays, meaning they can normally bump the dates forward or back when official holidays fall on non-workdays. But that won’t apply this year because the law doesn’t offer such a provision for the inauguration holiday.

The reason: It’s not necessary.

The government provides a holiday for the swearing-in to relieve some of the logistical problems — such as traffic congestion and security — associated with the event, which draws massive crowds. That’s also why the holiday applies only to federal workers in the D.C. area instead of nationwide.

The extra day off won’t be needed to keep things running smoothly, because the King holiday eliminates the usual weekday crush of commuters and workers.

Some federal employees will have to work Jan. 21 despite the holiday. Agencies can decide which, if any, employees need to work that day.

Workers who have to show up on holidays include law-enforcement officers, firefighters, medical personnel, meteorologists and watch-center operators.

When Inauguration Day falls on a Sunday, the chief justice can administer the oath of office privately that day and publicly the following Monday. That’s how the process will take place this time around.

This year marks the seventh time in U.S. history that the constitutionally mandated inauguration date has fallen on a Sunday, with the last instance occurring during President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985, according to a press release from the office of Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.

Perhaps more notable is the symbolic importance of President Obama taking the oath of office on the King holiday.

“It works so well together,” said Hilary Shelton, senior vice president of policy and advocacy for the NAACP and director of the organization’s D.C. bureau. “It’s a wonderful thing, because so many people that support Dr. King’s legacy and believe in his dream will be coming to this inauguration.”

Shelton said Obama’s efforts on job creation, hate-crime prevention, public education and access to health care align with the mission of the late civil rights leader, who was assassinated in 1968.

“Many people see the agenda President Obama has worked so hard to push forward as something that supports Dr. King’s vision,” he said. “If we look at the agenda put forward by this administration, we see a direct correlation with what Dr. King worked for and died for.”

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Giant squid filmed in Pacific depths: Japan scientists

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TOKYO: Scientists and broadcasters said Monday they have captured footage of an elusive giant squid up to eight metres (26 feet) long that roams the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

Japan's National Science Museum succeeded in filming the deep-sea creature in its natural habitat for the first time, working with Japanese public broadcaster NHK and the US Discovery Channel.

They spotted the squid at a depth of 630 meters (2,067 feet) using a submersible in July, some 15 kilometres (nine miles) east of Chichi island in the north Pacific Ocean.

The submarine with three people on board, including Tsunemi Kubodera from the museum, followed the enormous mollusc to a depth of 900 metres as it swam into the ocean abyss.

NHK showed footage of the silver-coloured creature, which had huge black eyes, as it swam against the current, holding a bait squid in its arms against the backdrop of dark oceanic depths.

The creature was about three metres long, but "estimated to be as long as eight metres if its two long arms had not been chopped off", Kubodera told AFP.

He gave no explanation for its missing arms.

He said it was the first video footage of a live giant squid in its natural habitat -- the depths of the sea where there is little oxygen.

Kobudera, a squid specialist, also filmed what he says was the first live video footage of a giant squid in 2006 but only from his boat after it was hooked and brought up to the surface.

The giant squid, "Architeuthis" to scientists, is sometimes described as one of the last mysteries of the ocean, being part of a world so hostile to humans that it has been little explored.

-AFP/fl



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Pak soldier killed, India says fired in retaliation

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SRINAGAR: Pakistani troops violated ceasefire on Sunday by firing mortar shells towards Indian army posts at Hajipir area in Uri sector near the Line of Control.

"They started firing mortar shells towards our posts in Uri sector around 3.15am," an army spokesman said. He said that some shells landed close to civilian habitation though no damage was done.

The spokesman added that Indian troops responded with light weapons which stopped the Pakistani shelling.

On the other hand, Pakistan's army has accused India of crossing the LoC and raiding its check post in Bagh area on Sunday. It said Indian troops raided a military post in the Hajipir sector of Bagh area, killing a soldier and injuring another.

(With inputs from Omer Farooq from Islamabad)

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Best Pictures: 2012 Nat Geo Photo Contest Winners

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Pastor Accused of Killing Wives Faces Trial

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Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday for Pastor Arthur Schirmer, who is accused of killing his second wife and then staging a car accident to hide it.


Schirmer, 64, also faces a second trial at a later date for the death of his first wife. He has said he is innocent of all charges.


In 2008, the pastor and his wife, Betty, were involved in what appeared at the time to be a car crash. Schirmer told police at the time that he had been driving 55 mph and swerved to miss a deer, causing him to drive off the road, according to a police affidavit obtained by ABC News.


Schirmer also said at the time that his wife's head had come forward and struck the windshield, according to the affidavit. Betty died a day later and her body was cremated at the request of Schirmer.


It wasn't until a grisly suicide in 2010 inside Schirmer's office that authorities decided to revisit the case of Betty Schirmer's death and arrest the pastor.


The man who broke in and shot himself at the desk in Schirmer's office at the Reeders United Methodist Church, Joseph Mustante, was the husband of the pastor's secretary, Cynthia Mustante, Poconos Township Police Detective James Wagner said.






Pocono Record, David Kidwell/AP Photo











Mustante's suicide was prompted by the discovery that his wife and the pastor had apparently been having an affair, Wagner said. He was alone at the time of his death.


Investigators looking into the suicide say that several church parishioners had concerns about the deaths of Schirmer's two wives.


"That suicide eventually exposed the affair publicly and subsequent to that, questions arose about the loss of [Schirmer's] wives and his character became questionable," Wagner said.


Relaunching the investigation into the two deaths, Wagner said he quickly suspected that "foul play existed, and the car crash was staged," allegedly, by Schirmer. Wagner said investigators also believed there was something "suspicious" about the first wife's death, a marriage that investigators had not known about prior to the suicide.

Investigators Look Into Deaths of Rev. Arthur Schirmer's Wives



Schirmer's first wife, Jewel, died in April 1999 from a traumatic brain injury after she purportedly fell down a flight of stairs in Lebanon, Pa., Wagner said.


Lebanon is about 100 miles southwest of Reeders, where Schrimer later moved with his second wife.


At the time of Jewel's death, Wagner said, a relative told police that he suspected Schirmer may have had a hand in his wife's death but that the investigation was "never completed."


On Dec. 11, 2012 -- more than 13 years after Jewel died, a Lebanon County judge ruled Schirmer would be tried for her murder.


When investigators looked at the death of Betty Schirmer, they saw inconsistencies, Wagner said.


"There was no airbag deployment and it simply looked like a car that had driven off the road at a very low speed," Wagner said. "It didn't match the injuries to [Betty's head].


"I know there are people out there who probably know him and feel like there is absolutely no way he would be capable of doing this," Wagner of Schirmer. "But they clearly don't know him."



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After ‘fiscal cliff,’ Obama finishes recharging on Hawaiian holiday

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HONOLULU — The place where President Obama vacations each winter is farther from Washington than almost any other place in the United States. So, it is not terribly surprising that less than 45 minutes after Congress passed a bill averting the “fiscal cliff” on Jan. 1, Obama was racing back here.


The president’s vacation with his family and friends had already been cut short by the protracted, painful negotiations in Washington over taxes and spending. Obama was eager to get away from it all and enjoy a few final days of rest before the next round of legislative battles begins.


“I think Hawaii for him is a place where he gets to recharge both physically and emotionally. The schedule is one that’s relaxing. The climate is warm like he likes it. And he’s surrounded constantly by family and the friends he grew up with,” said Robert Gibbs, Obama’s former press secretary and a longtime adviser. “It’s the perfect elixir for having had a long and busy year in national politics.”

The president was scheduled to leave Hawaii late Saturday, returning to Washington on Sunday a little before noon. He will have spent a total of nine days here, over two separate trips, and roughly 40 hours in the air going back and forth.

“Like any parent, the president enjoyed spending as much time with his family over the holidays as he could,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said.

The president first flew here Dec. 21, urging lawmakers to drink some eggnog and cool off over the Christmas holiday. Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11, rented a house overlooking the beach in the town of Kailua, on the east side of Oahu, Hawaii’s most-populous island, where Obama was born and spent much of his youth.

As has become his custom, Obama spent his time eating at Hawaii hot spots with family and friends, golfing with buddies for six-hour stretches and hanging out at home and around Oahu with his girls. He spent his first night in Hawaii out until 11:30, dining at Morimoto Restaurant Waikiki, owned by Masaharu Morimoto of “Iron Chef” fame.

The next day began with a memorial service for Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), whom Obama had previously called his “earliest political inspiration.” Following the service, which was at a veterans cemetery known as the Punchbowl, for the topographical imprint left by volcanic eruptions tens of thousands of years ago, Obama and his wife walked about a half-mile southeast to visit the grave of his grandfather Stanley Dunham, who served in World War II.

Obama went for a hike with his family later that day and then spent part of Dec. 24 with his family at the beach. Many of the president’s activities were confined to the Marine Corps base here, about a 10-minute drive from his rental home.

The Obamas’ Christmas activities are an established routine. On Christmas Eve, Obama calls members of the armed forces and his wife calls children tracking Santa’s whereabouts, before the family sits down for dinner. The next morning, they open Christmas gifts, eat breakfast and sing carols. Later in the day, the president and his wife meet with a few hundred service members at the Marine Corps base.

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Community Policing System extended to 6 more NPCs

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SINGAPORE: The Singapore Police Force will implement its Community Policing System (COPS) at six more Neighbourhood Police Centres (NPC) across the island.

Minister at the Prime Minister's Office S Iswaran made the announcement at a community event on Sunday.

The six NPCs are at Bishan, Punggol, Sengkang, Woodlands East, Woodlands West and Clementi.

Mr Iswaran, who is also the Second Minister for Home Affairs, said this is part of the second phase of the COPS rollout.

The COPS system was introduced in May last year in Tampines and Bukit Merah East.

It is a nationwide transformation of front-line policing strategies which aims to improve the way in which the current NPCs work with the community.

Under COPS, NPCs will be strengthened with additional resources for tackling local crime concerns and enhancing community engagement.

Over the next three years, the Police will progressively implement COPS across all 35 NPCs in Singapore.

Mr Iswaran said the Police's experience with the rollout of COPS during the first phase has been positive.

Residents have been pleased with the increased Police presence.

Many have also come forward to take a more active role in partnering the Police, for example through joint patrols.

The West Coast Protectors was also launched on Sunday.

It is a new Residents' Watch Group jointly formed by the Clementi NPC and the Clementi constituency.

So far some 300 volunteers have signed up to be Protectors.

- CNA/fa



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Cold wave continues in J&K

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SRINAGAR: There was no respite from the intense cold as the temperatures remained much below the freezing point in the Kashmir Valley and the Ladakh region of the state, said a weather official here Sunday.

"The night temperature was minus 4.6 degrees celsius in Srinagar. It was minus 8.0 in Pahalgam and minus 9.0 degrees celsius in Gulmarg today (Sunday)," an official of the Met office told IANS.

Leh town in the Ladakh region was the coldest town in the state where the temperature dropped to minus 18.0 degrees celsius. In Kargil town of Ladakh region it was 17.4 degrees celsius, said the official.

According to the official, the cold conditions in the state would continue during the next 24 hours because of the dry weather dry here.

"Cold wave conditions are likely to continue in the state during the next 24 hours because of the dry weather. In Jammu region foggy weather can disrupt road and air traffic," the official said.

Parts of Dal Lake in summer capital Srinagar have already frozen here as fisherman and Shikarawallahs find it difficult to row their boats in the Kashmir Valley these days.

Freeze and frost on the city roads has made morning and evening passage for commuters and motorists risky as most of them prefer to remain indoors till the feeble winter sunshine breaks the frost.

Kashmir is passing through the harsh 40-day winter period known locally as the 'Chillai Kalan' which began here Dec 21 and will end Jan 30.

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