JAKARTA - An Indonesian passenger plane carrying more than 100 people veered off a runway as it landed in Papua, then snapped in half as it came to rest in a nearby river, a transport ministry official said on Tuesday. About 20 passengers and a member of the cabin crew on the Merpati Nusantara Airlines plane were injured in the accident and taken to hospital, the official said.
Several small domestic carriers serve Indonesia's sprawling archipelago and many have poor safety records. Papua, about 1,830 miles east of the capital, Jakarta, is one of the most isolated and underdeveloped regions of Indonesia. There are few roads in the province, which occupies the western half of the island of New Guinea, and air travel is a common form of transport.
The European Commission, which had barred all Indonesian airlines from its airspace, only last year lifted a ban on four Indonesian carriers — flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, Mandala, Airfast and Premiair — after they had improved safety standards.
I don’t know why you would, but if you ever have to go to Indonesia, I’d try to find an alternative method of travel. You don’t want to be flying in any planes that could just up and snap in two. I mean, if you hear “snap in half,” you think maybe a pencil, or a Ritz cracker, or maybe even a chair leg. But not a fucking airplane!
If you’re ever having a bad day, or thinking you’re life sucks, just remember: Where we live, at least our airplanes don’t snap in half upon landing.
Barbourula Kalimantanensis - The frog, which has no lungs and breathes through its skin, was found in a remote part of Indonesia's Kalimantan province on Borneo island, a discovery that researchers said Thursday, April 10, 2008, could provide insight into what drives evolution in certain species. Image Credit: David Bickford - AP
Lungless Frog Adaptation Reduces Buoyancy
The Bornean Flat-headed Frog, which looks a little unusual, in that it’s shape is rounded and features skin flaps and folds, was first sighted about thirty years ago and officially noted about one year ago, breathes through its skin in an osmosis like process.
Combination image shows a Map of Borneo (A) showing the Indonesian portion, Kalimantan, in the South-Central part of the island, and (B) Barbourula kalimantanensis in anterior view, and (C) laternal view showing extreme flattening. Barbourula kalimantanensis, a rare and primitive frog living in a remote Borneo stream has no lungs and apparently absorbs oxygen through its skin, researchers reported on April 9, 2008. Image Credit: REUTERS/David Bickford/National University of Singapore/Handout (UNITED STATES)
The lungless nature of this frog is a unique trait and is shared by only a few amphibious species that include some salamanders and a wormlike creature known as a caecilian.
The frog discovery could help scientists understand the environmental factors that contribute to "extreme evolutionary change" since its closest relative in the Philippines and other frogs have lungs.
"These are about the most ancient and bizarre frogs you can get on the planet [Oblate Spheroid]," David Bickford - Evolutionary Biologist at the National University of Singapore, said of the brown amphibian with bulging eyes and a tendency to flatten itself as it glides across the water.
Combination image shows a comparison of (A) the mouth and pharynx of a American Bullfrong (rana catesbeiana), showing glottis, tongue, and esophageal opening, and (B) Barbourula kalimantanensis showing tongue, no glottis, and enlarged esophageal opening leading directly to the stomach. Barbourula kalimantanensis, a rare and primitive frog living in a remote Borneo stream has no lungs and apparently absorbs oxygen through its skin, researchers reported on April 9, 2008. Image Credit: REUTERS/David Bickford/National University of Singapore/Handout (UNITED STATES)
This excerpted from Yahoo! News –
Frog without lungs found in Indonesia By MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer - Thu Apr 10, 5:20 PM ET
BANGKOK, Thailand - A frog has been found in a remote part of Indonesia that has no lungs and breathes through its skin, a discovery that researchers said Thursday could provide insight into what drives evolution in certain species.
The aquatic frog Barbourula kalimantanensis was found in a remote part of Indonesia's Kalimantan province on Borneo island during an expedition in August 2007, said David Bickford, an evolutionary biologist at the National University of Singapore. Bickford was part of the trip and co-authored a paper on the find that appeared in this week's edition of the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology. ---- "They are like a squished version of Jabba the Hutt," he [David Bickford] said, referring to the character from Star Wars. "They are flat and have eyes that float above the water."
Bickford's Indonesian colleague, Djoko Iskandar, first came across the frog 30 years ago and has been searching for it ever since. He didn't know the frog was lungless until they cut eight of the specimens open in the lab.
Graeme Gillespie, director of conservation and science at Zoos Victoria in Australia, called the frog "evolutionarily unique." He said the eight specimens examined in the lab showed the lunglessness was consistent with the species and not "a freak of nature." Gillespie was not a member of the expedition or the research team.
Bickford surmised that the frog had evolved to adapt to its difficult surroundings, in which it has to navigate cold, rapidly moving streams that are rich in oxygen.
"It's an extreme adaptation that was probably brought about by these fast-moving streams," Bickford said, adding that it probably needed to reduce its buoyancy in order to keep from being swept down the mountainous rivers. ---- Bickford and Gillespie said the frog's discovery adds urgency to the need to protect its river habitat, which in recent years has become polluted due to widespread illegal logging and gold mining. Once-pristine waters are now brown and clogged with silt, they said.
"The gold mining is completely illegal and small scale. But when there are thousands of them on the river, it really has a huge impact," Bickford said. "Pretty soon the frogs will run out of the river." Reference Here>>
Graphic fact file on the coelacanth, a rare fish once thought to be extinct for millions of years until one was caught in 1938 off the coast of East Africa. A living specimen was caught in Indonesia this year, only the second ever in the region. Image Credit: AFP Graphic
The Coelacanth: A Fish For Time … Any Time
The Coelacanth is just this type of ocean creature.
It has become a fish of our time in that the sightings are so rare that these these occurrences create international attention in the scientific community.
Most scientists believed that this fish was extinct until one was caught and catalogued about 70 years ago, in the Commoros archipelago, off of the coast of Eastern Africa.
Until this latest catch, there was only one other sighting in Indonesia (in the same area, Manado, as this sighting) back in 1998.
Coelacanths, closely related to lungfish, usually live at depths of 656-3,200 feet. They can grow up to 6.5 feet in length and weigh as much as 200 pounds.
This catch was equally unusual, in that, it came on the end of a 360 foot line … about half of the depth that scientists understood this fish could live.
Further, this Coelacanth is a fish for time … any time because it only took a little over two months for information on this capture to make it to general news distribution.
An unidentified researcher measures a coelacanth after it was caught by fishermen at a depth of about 100m off Nungwi, northern Zanzibar July 14, 2007. The fish weighed 27kgs with a total length of 134.8cm. The coelacanth, known from fossil records dating back more than 360 million years, was believed to have become extinct some 80 million years ago until one was caught off the eastern coast of South Africa in 1938 -- a major zoological find. Image Credit: Picture taken July 14, 2007. REUTERS/Dr Narriman Jiddawi/Institute of Marine Sciences in Zanzibar/Handout (TANZANIA)
This from Agence France-Presse (AFP) via Yahoo! News -
Scientists excited by Indonesian-caught coelacanth By Ronan Bourhis - AFP - Sat Jul 28, 11:06 PM ET
MANADO, Indonesia - Two months ago Indonesian fisherman Justinus Lahama caught a fish so exceptional that an international team of scientists rushed here to investigate.
French experts equipped with sonar and GPS asked Lahama to reconstruct, in his dugout canoe, exactly what it was he did that enabled him to catch a rare coelacanth fish, an awkward-swimming species among the world's oldest.
Indonesian fisherman Justinus Lahama displaying to international researchers how he managed to capture a giant and very rare coelacanth fish in Manado, North Sulawesi, in June. Their fossil records date back more than 360 million years and suggest the animal has changed little in that time. Image Credit: AFP/File/Ronan Bourhis
Last May 19, Lahama and his son Delvy manoevred their frail canoe into the Malalayang river, on the outskirts of Manado, on northern Sulawesi island. Like any other morning, they rowed out to sea and fished within 200 metres (yards) of the beach. ---- "I very quickly unrolled the usual trawl line with three hooks, about 110 metres (yards) long, and at the end of three minutes, I felt a large catch," Lahama recounts.
The pull was strong: "I had painful arms -- I felt such a resistance, I thought that I was pulling up a piece of coral."
After 30 minutes of effort under the searing tropical sun, he finally saw a fish swishing at a depth of about 20 metres (65 feet).
"The sea was very calm this day. There was no wind, no clouds, no current. The water was very clear. The fish let itself be drawn in from there," he says.
"It was an enormous fish. It had phosphorescent green eyes and legs. If I had pulled it up during the night, I would have been afraid and I would have thrown it back in," he exclaims. ---- Lahama, 48, has fished since he was 10 years old, like his father and his grandfather before him. But he was unlikely to have ever run into this "living fossil" species, as scientists have dubbed the enigmatic fish.
Fin of a very rare coelacanth fish in Manado as Indonesian, Japanese and French specialists (unseen) carry out an autopsy, North Sulawesi, in June. Coelacanths are among the world's oldest fish species. Their fossil records date back more than 360 million years and suggest the animal has changed little in that time. Image Credit: AFP/File/Ronan Bourhis
Lahama's catch, 1.3 metres long and weighing 50 kilograms (110 pounds) was only the second ever captured alive in Asia. ---- Their fossil records date back more than 360 million years and suggest that the fish has changed little over that period. ---- Returning to port, he [Lahama] showed it off to the most senior fisherman, who became alarmed.
"It is a fish which has legs -- it should be given back to the water. It will bring us misfortune," he told him. But the unsuperstitious Lahama decided to keep it.
After spending 30 minutes out of water, the fish, still alive, was placed in a netted pool in front of a restaurant at the edge of the sea. It survived for 17 hours.
The local fisheries authorities filmed the fish swimming in the metre-deep pool, capturing invaluable images as the species had only previously been recorded in caves at great depths. ---- The site of capture, so close to the beach and from a depth of 105 metres, had intrigued the scientists. Does the Indonesian coelacanth live in shallower waters than its cousin in the Commoros?
Lahama's fish is to be preserved and will be displayed in a museum in Manado. Read All>>
It is now against the law to raise poultry in residential areas in Indonesia. Many wonder how authorities are going to police this new regulation, given that over 30 million families have poultry in their backyard. Image Credit: New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV)
Tick, Tick, Tick, - Indo H5N1 Death Toll To 74
Last month, Indonesia had five deaths tied directly to the Avian bird flu virus (H5N1). This makes this country the deadliest of all countries with deaths from the transference of the flu disease from birds.
It is now only one full week into April and already two deaths have been recorded in this hot spot for bird flu transference activity.
Excerpts from Medical News Today (UK) -
Indonesian Bird Flu Human Death Toll Reaches 74 Avian Flu News - Article Date: 07 Apr 2007 - 8:00 PDT
A 29-year-old man died of H5N1 bird flu infection, Indonesian authorities have confirmed today - the 74th human to die of bird flu infection in the country. The man came from Central Java province. According to authorities, he had been in close contact with infected poultry prior to becoming ill. ---- Scientists fear that the H5N1 bird flu virus strain will eventually mutate and become easily human transmissible. This has not happened yet. Humans do not catch bird flu from birds easily - it is extremely rare for one person to infect another person.
One way H5N1 could mutate might be by infecting a person who is ill with the normal human flu virus. The bird flu virus would then have the opportunity to exchange genetic information with the human flu virus and acquire its ability to spread easily from human-to-human (become easily human transmissible). If this happened we could be facing a serious (global) flu pandemic. Reference Here>>
