Jordan is racing against time to save a tiny rare fish from extinction as falling water levels partly triggered by global warming threaten to dry up its last habitat.
The Dead Sea toothcarp — scientific name Aphanius dispar richardsoni — has been on the red list of the International Union for Conversation of Nature since 2014.
The IUCN warns that the “exploitation of spring waters and climate change” are major threats facing the four-centimeter-long, silver-colored fish.
“This fish is threatened with extinction at the global level. It is endemic here and does not exist elsewhere,” said Ibrahim Mahasneh, the manager of the fish’s last home, the Fifa Nature Reserve.
Lying some 140 kilometers (85 miles) southwest of Amman in the Jordan Rift Valley and 60 kilometers south of the Dead Sea, the area is the lowest wet reserve on Earth.
Established in 2011, the reserve consists of some 20 square kilometers. It is located some 426 meters (1,400 feet) below sea level and is managed by an independent body, the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN).
Even though the Hashemite kingdom is primarily desert, this area of wetlands is criss-crossed by streams and is home to a variety of plant and wildlife species including birds.
“We have a plan to save and breed this fish... to create a natural habitat for it to breed and at the same time to mitigate the existing threat,” added Mahasneh.
“The reserve is the last home for this endangered species of fish,” said environmental researcher Abdallah Oshoush who works in the reserve.
The male fish also has a streak of blue along its sides, while the female has incomplete black stripes.
It is not known how many still remain, but “monitoring programs have warned of a clear decline in the presence of this fish in recent years,” Oshoush said.
Among the environmental threats causing numbers to drop is the “lowering water level due to low rainfall and the change in its environment, as well as the presence of other fish that feed on it and its eggs.”
Researchers are now preparing to open an artificial pond just for the toothcarp so they can grow safely and their eggs are not devoured by predators. Each season, a female produces around 1,000 eggs.
The aim is then to release the young fish back into the natural environment.
“In Jordan live two unique species of fish that do not exist anywhere else in the world. These are our precious treasures and they must be preserved for our ecosystem,” said RSCN spokesperson Salem Nafaa.
Two decades ago the RSCN succeeded in saving the endangered Aphanuis Sirhani fish in its only habitat in the Azraq reserve, about 110 kilometers (65 miles) east of Amman.
It got its scientific name from the Wadi Sirhan, which extends from the Arabian Peninsula to Azraq, but is commonly known in English as the Azraq killifish.
Only about six centimeters long, it is also silver but the female is spotted while the male has black stripes.
“In the year 2000, there were no more than 500 Azraq killifish in the oasis, which means it was on the verge of extinction,” said Nashat Hmaidan, the director of the RSCN Biodiversity Monitoring Center.
“It was declining sharply, and it reached just 0.02 percent of the number of fish in the oasis,” he said, blaming other predatory fish and migratory birds as well as a fall in water levels.
The RSCN studied the fish’s life cycle and determined it needed shallow water to lay eggs, and should be isolated from other species for the best chance of survival.
“We collected 20 fish over two years and put them in a concrete pond designated for breeding.”
After the first fish were released back into the waters the team saw its presence had increased from 0.02 percent to nearly 50 percent. It “was a great success,” he added.
Twenty years on, the Azraq killifish accounts for almost 70 percent of the fish in the waters. But he cautioned the goal now is that the numbers should “never drop below 50 percent.”
Hazem Hrisha, the director of the Azraq Wetland reserve, highlighted its important biodiversity, with more than 133 plant species and more than 163 species of invertebrates.
The reserve “is located on the most important bird migration paths,” he said, adding two thirds of the bird species found in the kingdom had been recorded in Azraq.
Jordan battles to save rare tiny Dead Sea carp
Jordan battles to save rare tiny Dead Sea carp
NASA’s oldest active astronaut returns to Earth on 70th birthday
WASHINGTON: Cake, gifts and a low-key family celebration may be how many senior citizens picture their 70th birthday.
But NASA’s oldest serving astronaut Don Pettit became a septuagenarian while hurtling toward the Earth in a spacecraft to wrap up a seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
A Soyuz capsule carrying the American and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday, the day of Pettit’s milestone birthday.
“Today at 0420 Moscow time (0120 GMT), the Soyuz MS-26 landing craft with Alexei Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Donald (Don) Pettit aboard landed near the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan,” Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said.
Spending 220 days in space, Pettit and his crewmates Ovchinin and Vagner orbited the Earth 3,520 times and completed a journey of 93.3 million miles over the course of their mission.
It was the fourth spaceflight for Pettit, who has logged more than 18 months in orbit throughout his 29-year career.
The trio touched down in a remote area southeast of Kazakhstan after undocking from the space station just over three hours earlier.
NASA images of the landing showed the small capsule parachuting down to Earth with the sunrise as a backdrop.
The astronauts gave thumbs-up gestures as rescuers carried them from the spacecraft to an inflatable medical tent.
Despite looking a little worse for wear as he was pulled from the vessel, Pettit was “doing well and in the range of what is expected for him following return to Earth,” NASA said in a statement.
He was then set to fly to the Kazakh city of Karaganda before boarding a NASA plane to the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Texas.
The astronauts spent their time on the ISS researching areas such as water sanitization technology, plant growth in various conditions and fire behavior in microgravity, NASA said.
The trio’s seven-month trip was just short of the nine months that NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams unexpectedly spent stuck on the orbital lab after the spacecraft they were testing suffered technical issues and was deemed unfit to fly them back to Earth.
Space is one of the final areas of US-Russia cooperation amid an almost complete breakdown in relations between Moscow and Washington over the Ukraine conflict.
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Philippines devotees nailed to crosses to re-enact Christ’s crucifixion
- Around 80 percent of the Philippines’ 110 million people are Roman Catholics
- Rituals form part of Holy Week, which spans from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday
CUTUD, Philippines: Christian devotees from the Philippines were nailed to a cross on Friday in a reenactment of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion in the predominantly Catholic nation.
Hundreds of Filipinos and foreign tourists flocked to the northern village of San Pedro Cutud in Pampanga province to witness Ruben Enaje nailed to the cross and portray Christ for the 36th time in an annual devotional display. Two other devotees joined him in re-enacting the crucifixion.
Actors dressed as Roman soldiers hammered Enaje’s palms with two-inch nails. Ropes and fabric supported their bodies as they were raised on wooden crosses.
“The first five seconds were very painful. As time goes and the blood goes down, the pain numbs and I can stay on the cross longer,” Enaje, 64, said in an interview.
Around 80 percent of the Philippines’ 110 million people identify as Roman Catholics. The rituals form part of Holy Week, which spans from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday and is one of the most sacred and solemn periods in the Philippines’ religious calendar.
During Holy Week, some devotees flog their backs repeatedly with bamboo whips in an act of self-flagellation to seek penance and atonement. The Catholic Church has discouraged the practice, saying prayers and sincere repentance are enough to commemorate Lent.
‘Star Wars’ fans wave lightsabers as an upcoming film gets announced in Japan
- Gosling and director Shawn Levy appeared on stage Friday before a lightsaber-waving crowd at Makuhari Messe center outside Tokyo
- The event, called Star Wars Celebration, continues through Sunday
CHIBA: The Force was with many Japanese, as well as visitors from abroad, at a “Star Wars” event on Friday where Lucasfilm announced that the next installation in the franchise will hit theaters in May 2027 starring Ryan Gosling.
Appearing on stage before a lightsaber-waving crowd at Makuhari Messe center outside Tokyo, Gosling showed a photo of his childhood bedsheets, plastered with illustrations from the space epic created by George Lucas.
“I guess I was dreaming about ‘ Star Wars ‘ even before I saw the film,” Gosling said.
Shawn Levy, who will direct the movie, told the crowd that “Star Wars: Starfighter” will not be a prequel or a sequel, but a new standalone adventure with new characters set several years after “Episode Nine.” Filming starts later this year, he said.
Levy, who also directed the 2006 film “The Pink Panther” and the recent Netflix series “Stranger Things,” said little else, noting: “I can’t say much about it because I understand the rules.”
Only the title was shown on a giant screen, although that was enough for the crowd to burst into cheers.
The event, called Star Wars Celebration, which runs through Sunday, is full of “Star Wars“-themed merchandise including T-shirts, toys, books, manga comics, AC chargers, cellphone covers, autographs, posters and more.
The Lego booth featured a man wearing the ominous black mask and cloak of Darth Vader, made out of Legos. The deep-breathing villain also appeared as traditional Japanese lacquerware decorating earphones in a limited edition of 10, each selling for 990,000 yen ($7,000). Darth Vader T-shirts were more affordable at 8,000 yen ($56).
“It makes me so happy to think everyone here loves ‘Star Wars,’” said Yoshiki Takahashi, 26, who was holding a remote-controlled R2-D2 miniature robot.
“I love the directing, the sound of the gun and the lightsaber, but above all the story, with great fight scenes and, of course, human drama,” he added.
Another Japanese man, who said he goes only by Hiro, was dressed as the “Star Wars” character Mandalorian, in a detailed costume he made himself, complete with a plastic sword and armor.
Also present were “Star Wars” fans from around the world, including a robed Raul Herrera, a computer science teacher from Chile, who was there with friends.
“All of them,” said Herrera, when asked which ‘Star Wars’ films he’d seen. “The sense of commitment of the characters, I really like it.”
With offshoot stories spanning generations and literally the cosmos, “Star Wars” is one of the highest-grossing franchises of all time since its 1977 debut, starring Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker.
It may be natural that “Star Wars” appeals to Japanese: Its story about a samurai-like hero who befriends various characters along his journey echoes the nation’s fables, as well as legendary Akira Kurosawa films.
Scientists find possible chemical signs of life on a faraway planet
- Researchers found evidence of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide in the atmosphere of the planet known as K2-18b
- On Earth, those two compounds are produced primarily by microbial life, such as marine phytoplankton
LONDON: Astronomers have found possible chemical signs of life on a distant planet outside our solar system, though they caution more work is needed to confirm their findings.
The research, led by scientists at the University of Cambridge, detected evidence of compounds in the exoplanet’s atmosphere that on Earth are only produced by living organisms and contended it’s the strongest potential signal yet of life.
Independent scientists described the findings as interesting, but not nearly enough to show the existence of life on another planet.
“It is the strongest sign to date of any possibility of biological activity outside the solar system,” Cambridge astrophysicist Nikku Madhusudhan said during a livestream on Thursday.
By analyzing data from the James Webb Space Telescope, the researchers found evidence of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide in the atmosphere of the planet known as K2-18b. The planet is 124 light-years away; one light-year is equivalent to nearly 6 trillion miles.
On Earth, those two compounds are produced primarily by microbial life, such as marine phytoplankton.
The planet is more than double Earth’s size and more than 8 times more massive. It’s in the so-called habitable zone of its star. The study appeared in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Madhusudhan stressed that further research is needed to rule out any errors or the possibility of other processes, besides living organisms, that could produce the compounds.
David Clements, an astrophysicist at Imperial College London, said atmospheres on other planets are complex and difficult to understand, especially with the limited information available from a planet so far away.
“This is really interesting stuff and, while it does not yet represent a clear detection of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide, it is a step in the right direction,” he said in comments released by the Science Media Center in London.
More than 5,500 planets orbiting other stars have been confirmed so far. Thousands more are in the running out of the billions out there in our Milky Way galaxy alone.
Launched in 2021, Webb is the biggest and most powerful observatory ever sent into space.
Philippine film legend Nora Aunor dies aged 71
- She was proclaimed a ‘National Artist for Film and Broadcast Arts’ in 2022
- The cause of death, which took place Wednesday, was not disclosed
MANILA: Nora Aunor, considered by many Filipinos as their country’s greatest actress and singer, has died aged 71, the government and her family said Thursday.
Proclaimed a “National Artist for Film and Broadcast Arts” by the Philippines in 2022, the once child snack vendor who would go on to star in 170 films will be honored with a state funeral.
“It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing of Nora Aunor, our beloved mother, celebrated television and movie actress,” her adopted daughter Lotlot de Leon announced Thursday on her Instagram page.
The cause of death, which took place Wednesday, was not disclosed.
Her first break came when cast in 1967’s “All Over the World,” a typical teen comedy of the era.
Aunor, who had a darker skin tone compared to the half-Caucasian actresses that dominated local cinema at the time — brought a relatability to audiences, earning her the nickname Ate guy, or big sister guy.
She would become a sensation as part of a studio-manufactured “love team” with actor Tirso Cruz III. Together they were known as “Guy and Pip.”
Critical acclaim followed nearly a decade later with starring roles in the dramas “Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos” (Three Years Without God) and “Minsa’y Isang Gamu-gamo” (Once a Moth), both released in 1976.
Aunor also recorded hundreds of songs, including 1971’s “Pearly Shells,” said to be one of the Philippine’s top-selling singles ever.
On Thursday, President Ferdinand Marcos described her as “a gift to the Filipino nation,” and the government’s National Commission for Culture and the Arts said she would receive a state funeral at a date to be determined.
“Throughout her splendid career that spanned more than 50 years, she was our consummate actress, singer, and film producer,” Marcos said.
“Her golden voice was a balm for all. Her genius was a gift to the Filipino nation.”
The fourth of five children from a family in the poverty-stricken Bicol region southeast of Manila, Aunor, born Nora Villamayor, helped the family make ends meet by selling cold water and snacks at a train station.
Her grandmother taught her to sing, and at 14, she won a nationwide singing contest.
She married local actor Christopher de Leon in 1975, and the couple had one biological child and four adopted children before separating two decades later.
Aunor later immigrated to the United States, and in 2005 was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport for drugs possession. She underwent a court-directed drug diversion program that kept her out of prison.
She returned to Manila in 2011 to resume her acting and singing career.
